


We Need To Talk About That Thing

by Guede



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alive Hale Family, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Humor, BAMF Sheriff Stilinski, Dubious Morality, Dysfunctional Relationships, Established Peter Hale/Stiles Stilinski, F/M, Father-Son Relationship, Flashbacks, Floor Sex, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Magical Stiles Stilinski, Non-Linear Narrative, Pack Dynamics, Polyamory, Sheriff Stilinski Knows, Sheriff Stilinski's Name is John, Slow Build, Sourwolf Derek Hale, Trust Issues, Werewolf Victoria Argent, Young Derek Hale, Young Peter Hale, Young Stiles Stilinski
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-01
Updated: 2019-02-24
Packaged: 2019-10-01 19:37:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 25
Words: 83,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17250146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Guede/pseuds/Guede
Summary: After Claudia dies, her father stops in to check on her grieving husband and son, and to offer them a new direction in life.Fast-forward to the present, and Stiles misses lunch with Peter without explanation.Obviously, Peter’s going to kill someone.2/24/19:“I was making sure the line doesn’t get any longer,” Stiles says, sliding Peter a menu.  He gets back into his chair and puts his phone away, and then, so Peter doesn’t pout the entire meal, crosses his feet around Peter’s ankle.  “Since we’ve never in the history of me living in this town been able to have a pack-to-pack meet without somebody throwing down, and you always want a rosé slushie after beating up an alpha.”





	1. Now

When Stiles doesn’t show up for his and Peter’s usual Thursday lunch, Peter does not—contrary to everyone’s, including his own family’s, assumptions—immediately murder someone. He’s in public, two years ago they stupidly decided to let the remaining Argents live, and this place serves the best pastrami sandwich in northern California. Having it shut down for two weeks while the health inspector gets around to relicensing it is not acceptable, given his alternatives then would be to get on a flight to New York City (requiring him to ask his sister to ask the East Coast packs to not be suicidal idiots), or to have pastrami shipped west, and Stiles has a _very_ sensitive palate when it comes to dry-ice burn.

“Check?” Peter says, smiling pleasantly at the nearest waitstaff.

The boy looks over, starts to head towards Peter, and then his eyes drop to the table and he blanches. Looks back at Peter, who continues smiling while wondering if this is how the high school manages to keep its sports teams stocked, despite the high fatality rate, and then damn near bulldozes two strollers in his haste to get across the room.

“Is everything all right, sir?” the boy says, panting, and then he collides into the table. He eeps and steadies it, then shakily attempts to look like he couldn’t use the support. “I know the kitchen’s a little jammed today, but your usual’s coming up in five minutes. I mean, two, once I get back there and let them know who it is.”

It should feel more satisfying to have an assumption proven right, Peter thinks to himself. “No, that’s fine. Just cancel the order.”

“Are you sure?” the boy says desperately. He shares an alarmed glance with the hostess, who’s been making her way over, and then turns back to Peter. “If your, um, if your boyfriend’s running late, we can hold your order, it’s not—”

“Thank you, but that won’t be needed. I’ll just take it to—no, never mind, I don’t want to wait. I’ll just pay for it, and you can hand it around the staff,” Peter snaps, annoyed. He checks the clock on the wall, then gets up; if he’s going to catch Stiles’ father before the man disappears for his lunch, he needed to leave two minutes ago. “We won’t have _lunch_ today. Is that clear? Do I need to spell it out for your manager on the specials board?”

“Oh. No. No, I’ll…um, check. It’s here.” The boy fumbles with the pocket of his apron, then yelps and dives for the little leather folder that squirts out of it. “I’m so sorry, I hope everything’s all right.”

Peter plucks the receipt folder out of the air and is in the middle of opening it to check the total when the boy’s words register. He looks up and the boy goes white and starts to back away. “Stop that,” Peter says.

The boy stops. Still pale.

_How_ does the school manage, and with its current crop of werewolves all opting for Tech Club rather than sports, Peter wonders. Sighing, and pulling out two twenties without even checking whether they doubled up the soda charge again, and just shoving that back with the receipt so the boy will at least move over to where any fainting will not block Peter’s exit. Really, and people think he’s not capable of altruism.

Peter stops on the sidewalk just outside and calls Stiles’ father’s cell. For some reason, Peter’s sister picks up. _“I thought this is when you have lunch with Stiles,”_ she says before he can get in a word. _“This is why I keep trying to get you to keep a spare granola bar in your pocket, so you don’t kill people.”_

“A granola bar has nothing to do with who I kill,” Peter manages after a moment.

_“Of course it does. You’ve never killed anybody right after family dinner on Fridays, have you? And that’s because you’ve eaten and your blood sugar isn’t low,”_ Talia says, as she rummages around in what sounds like types of paper. Boxes, probably. Maybe manila folders. _“Do you remember whether John files women in black incidents under W or B?”_

“Actually, I have, have you completely forgotten Thanksgiving three years ago and—I’m not calling because I killed somebody,” Peter says, pushing his hand over his face. He glances around, then notices that inside the deli, his waiter is in a huddle with two hostesses and a busser. The moment he does, one of the hostesses jerks her head up with the unerring sense of endangered prey and stares back at him with wide, terrified eyes. “Stiles skipped lunch. Is John—”

_“He skipped lunch?”_ The rummaging sounds stop. _“Did he show up at all, or did he just completely skip?”_

The other hostess looks up, flinches, and then the foursome abruptly twist away from each other and frantically go about trying to look as if they’re simply doing their jobs, and not, in fact, hissing warnings to various customers or other waitstaff that the deli will need to close early today, so sorry, doggie bags will be provided but there will be no delivery service after dark.

“Are you in John’s office again?” Peter says, suddenly realizing what’s going on. “Where’s John? Did he not come home last night?”

_“I saw Victoria this morning, she swore on her daughter’s head it was just roadkill,”_ Talia mutters. There’s the muffled _blap_ of a cardboard box lid being slammed down, and then the sound of her strident footsteps. A swinging door, Tara calling out to put that back, and someone telling Parrish he might not want to duck out for that donut just now. _“Where are you? Are you closer to the east or the west side of the preserve?”_

“I’m at the deli,” Peter says.

Talia makes a disbelieving noise.

“Because he only was late as of five minutes ago! He was perfectly fine this morning and was texting me up till a half-hour ago, which still makes sense because the new place is too far for him to not drive, and we all told him we were not fixing the Jeep if he crashed it because of texting again,” Peter says. He’s trying not to raise his voice, but he is, and it is exceedingly irritating to hear himself do that, and this is why he doesn’t call his sister when he thinks there’s trouble. “Is John missing? Is that why you have his phone? And when were you going to let me know, before or after Stiles found out and went off to go raise an army of—”

_“He’s not missing, he’s just not talking to me,”_ Talia says, sounding wounded, as if she isn’t one of the most powerful alphas on the West Coast.

“You have his phone,” Peter points out.

_“So now I know he’s not blocking me,”_ his sister, widely renowned for her common sense, says.

Peter presses his fingers against his closed eyes. “Talia—”

_“Jordan, is Stiles dead?”_ Talia suddenly snaps.

_“What? No!”_ comes a distant yelp. _“He’s fine!”_

_“Well, he stood Peter up for lunch,”_ Talia says accusingly.

Parrish’s sigh is considerably closer to the phone. _“Shit, really? Okay, look, I know nothing. I really, honestly, truly know nothing about any dead body that’s turned up recently, and I’d like to continue to not know for at least twenty-four hours because I was hoping to cut my overtime at the morgue this week so if Peter could just—”_

“I have _not_ killed anyone,” Peter says. “Yet.”

_“You know, he is actually in the office,”_ Parrish says, and Peter realizes just then how tight his chest had gotten. _“He just isn’t talking to you, but you can try knocking.”_

Oh. That was for Talia. Peter takes a breath and then wills his claws to stay out of sight. 

_“He just keeps saying he’s trying to get through inventory,”_ Talia says. _“He did inventory yesterday, and now Stiles is standing Peter up, and so help me, if you’re all covering for them again—”_

_“Because there’s a lot to inventory! And I’m not covering, I’m just pointing out it’s just a door and you have superhuman strength and he usually doesn’t shoot people in the office! Oh, my God, I should have swapped for patrol,”_ Parrish moans. He moves briefly away, then comes back. _“Look, Peter, Stiles was alive as of two hours ago, he came over to drop lunch off for his dad. Scott was with him, did you talk to him yet?”_

Talia growls. _“Are you kidding me? I thought we were trying to avoid Peter killing anyone. Peter—look, Peter, I just need to drop a few things off at the house and then I’ll meet you at the preserve’s east—Peter? Peter?”_

In the deli, people are trying very hard not to look at Peter. However, they aren’t trying so hard to hide the fact that they’re typing on their phones, and that the typing syncs perfectly with the push notifications informing Peter that in the Beacon Hills area, tweets and posts about a potential monster/ghost/UFO sighting are trending. Peter puts his phone on silent and ignores it when his sister tries to call him back, and gets in his car.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fair warning, this is intended to be more of an ensemble piece, in which Peter/Stiles is the lens through which we are introduced to the relationship network. I love them. But I also love how their dynamic just spirals and spirals and spirals into frantic unintentional madcap comedy, given the right circumstances.


	2. Then

The first inkling John got that maybe things weren’t normal wasn’t Claudia’s illness so much as the fact that she kept insisting that Stiles had to be sent away. She got pretty forceful about it, to the point that that was actually what put the doctors on the right track to her actual diagnosis. She scared Stiles—scared John, honestly. The way she’d looked at him and Stiles just didn’t sit right, not even after the doctors had explained it all, and he just—he didn’t know how to explain it to their son.

Stiles dug into the research, because that was what he always did when he ran up against something he didn’t know. He was so smart that by itself was a little terrifying, too. So he probably managed to understand a lot of what he was reading in those medical journals. And John probably should have monitored that, made sure what Stiles was reading wasn’t—wasn’t going to twist up his head any worse than what was happening to Claudia was. Done what parents do.

It just was John wasn’t sure what was going on, but he knew that whatever he was going to be able to do, he wouldn’t be able to make Claudia get better. He and Stiles were going to lose her, and he just…he just barely could keep a face on around Stiles that wasn’t scary (or at least, that they could both pretend wasn’t scary), and remember to call Melissa McCall to have Stiles sleep over the couple nights John just needed to crawl into a bottle at the office. And he wasn’t doing this right, he knew that too, and Melissa was separating from her piece of shit husband and John couldn’t just keep dumping on her family.

So he called Claudia’s family, since his wasn’t really much better than Melissa’s. Claudia’s side tended to move around a lot, and Claudia kept most of the contact information in her head, but John tried what he could find in her things. He struck out with all of the U.S. numbers, but the one for Claudia’s father back in Poland worked on the first try. For a second, John couldn’t even speak, he was so surprised he’d gotten the international code right, and hungover to boot.

_“John?”_ Mieczyslaw said gruffly. _“Is my daughter dead yet?”_

“What?” John said incredulously. Then he swallowed hard and sat down, and tried to slur less. His father-in-law had always been kind of distant, even factoring in the geographical issue, and he’d never been totally sure why. But Mieczyslaw loved his daughter, John knew that much, and they’d named Stiles after the man, and John just…needed a breath. “No. No, she’s not. But she’s—she’s sick, she’s got this, the doctors say it’s a neurological—it’s called—”

On the other end of the line came a sharp suck of air. _“Did she attack anyone? Did she draw blood?”_

“No?” John said, blinking. “I said it’s—it’s not rabies, okay? But it’s terminal and I thought I should—”

_“You should put her in a hospital. They will care for what is left of her. You need to care for your son,”_ Mieczyslaw said, slow and deliberate, so there was no possible way John could pretend he hadn’t just said that.

“What the hell are you—” was as far as John got, and then he hung up before he did something he was going to regret. Then got something for his hangover, because in two hours Stiles needed to wake up for school and John had to go to work and somehow, life was going to go on. He’d get a babysitter or find a daycare with extended hours or something.

Two days later, John went to see Claudia in the hospital and she didn’t recognize him. At least, he didn’t think she did—she wouldn’t talk English the entire time he was there, just kept hissing at him in Polish. He’d learned a little, before Stiles had come along, trying to bridge the gap between him and Claudia’s family. He remembered a lot more than he would have thought, but it still wasn’t enough to make out more than a bunch of things he didn’t want anybody calling him, let alone her. It was like she didn’t even think he was _human_ anymore—the doctors had said paranoia was part of the disease progression, but this seemed way beyond that.

It was a shitty visit, and when he got home, Stiles wanted to know how she was and he snapped at Stiles to stop asking before he could stop himself, so his kid went quietly upstairs to download more medical articles and John, feeling like a shit, left a plastic-wrapped sandwich outside of Stiles’ door and then should have done the insurance paperwork that had been piling up.

Instead, he poked aimlessly about the house, reasoning to himself that he was doing the chores and somebody had to keep those up too, and that was why Mieczyslaw surprised him in the garage. “Jesus Christ!”

“John, I am here to help you and Stiles,” Mieczyslaw said gravely. Suitcase in hand, another, bigger one sitting behind him, and an old-fashioned fedora on his iron-grey hair. “There are things you both need to know.”

“What—did you just fly—did you want to call first? After that—what the hell was that, anyway?” John snapped back, once he’d steadied himself against the wall. “I thought—Claudia’s your daughter, you—”

“Yes, and her time has come. She will rest soon and her trials will be over. But you must act, if you and Stiles are to be safe once she is dead,” Mieczyslaw said, in the same grave, measured tone.

John flailed. His balance wasn’t nearly as steady as he thought it was, and this was—this was weird. Honestly, he didn’t know how else to respond. “What the hell?”

In response, Mieczyslaw took off his hat and put it on his luggage and then did something insane with his face and hands.

“I showed you the first passes,” Mieczyslaw explained fifteen minutes later, in the kitchen, after stonily taking away John’s whiskey in favor of a small bottle of clear liquid he’d pulled from the luggage. “You and Stiles should learn to do them without thinking. They will hold against all ghosts of human origins.”

John drank the shot, then collapsed into the nearest chair, coughing as his lungs tried to shove their burning lobes up his throat. “Ghosts?”

“This is the family calling. Claudia did not want it, she moved to America. But then she named her son after me. This is something I will never understand, my daughter,” Mieczyslaw continued. He poured his own shot, took a sedate sip from it, and did not breathe fire as he stared at John. “Giving him this name, not teaching him or you from the look on your face—you understand, you can pretend to not see. You can always do that. But this does not make them go away. And the name, my name, _his_ name, this they recognize.”

“Your English is a lot better,” John said weakly. Inanely. Still coughing. “I thought you didn’t really speak it.”

Mieczyslaw pressed his lips together. “I did not want to speak much to you.”

“Oh, yeah? I kind of thought so,” John said, catching his breath. He put his fist against his mouth and cleared his throat, and the burning went down a little bit. Then he sat back and looked at his father-in-law, and—and shit. This was really happening. “You don’t like me, do you.”

“I did not like that my daughter married an unbeliever,” Mieczyslaw said. 

Then he sat there, ramrod straight, still in his heavy wool coat, with one hand on the bottle of Polish Everclear. John coughed a few more times, then started to get up out of his seat, thinking about his son upstairs. One of Mieczyslaw’s eyebrows twitched and John almost jolted himself out of the chair and onto his ass on the floor, thinking it was going to be another—but no, the man’s face stayed normal.

Normal. Yeah. That. John took another breath. This could go one of two ways, he thought slowly, and then repeated it to himself under his breath. Either he kicked his father-in-law out, or he asked. His wife’s mind was literally killing her in a hospital, their son wasn’t coping, _he_ wasn’t coping, and his father-in-law had just announced that the supernatural was real and it was not nice. Yeah. Two ways to go here. That’s what John needed to focus on.

“You need to believe,” Mieczyslaw said. He paused, then leaned forward in his seat. “You need to listen. Your son—”

“You know, you had six months’ notice on the name,” John said, gripping what was left of his drink. “You could have—have said not to. Have _made something up_ , goddamn it, you didn’t have to say that naming him after you was going to induct him into some kind of cult—”

“We are not a cult, you fool. We are seers. Your son is going to be a seer, even if you do not believe, and for his sake—”

“Oh, for God’s sake, you do _that_ in my face and I’m not going to pretend I didn’t see it,” John snapped. Then jerked his head aside as something rattled on the table: his glass. He’d let go of it, because he’d risen halfway out of his chair like…like he was going to do something, rather than stare at his father-in-law who could probably curse him six ways from Sunday with just one of those barbed-wire eyebrows.

John sat down. Breathing wasn’t really doing him much good, he thought. Yeah. Just… _fuck_. Fuck.

Mieczyslaw was still looking at him. Still didn’t look like his brows were going to lift out of the Dark Ages any time soon, but the nature of the disappointment in the man’s eyes gradually changed. Finally he sighed and took another swallow from his glass. “John, I want my grandson to be safe and happy. He cannot help his name, but we can help him.”

“You said a seer, right? Like those people who see the future?” John said. The spindles in the chair back dug into his spine as he sank down. “So Claudia, she—”

“She knew. She knew this would happen. This is the way we die,” Mieczyslaw said. He sagged slightly, that fraction of movement altering him from a glowering old man to simply a grieving one. “It is never easy. We see, you know. Up till the end. And she—if she told you to leave her, she must have seen—”

“What, is something going to happen to her?” John snapped, getting back up.

“It already has, John,” Mieczyslaw said, his voice hardening again. He didn’t blink till John had returned to his seat. “Even if you leave now, you won’t make it in time.”

“You—” John cut himself off, twisting away. His elbow burst into pain and he jerked back, then looked dully at the table he’d run it into. Then at the glass skittering away from him.

It didn’t quite fall over the edge. A sudden, violent urge to swipe it the rest of the way and watch everything shiver apart into a million glittering splinters surged up into him, so hard that his breath caught and the world grew a little dark. And then…

And then it went down, and the light came back, because hell, he was angry, but he knew he couldn’t do anything. He was just a guy, sitting in a kitchen, with another guy, while the woman they both loved died far away from them.

“She did not tell me,” Mieczyslaw said quietly. So quietly that John assumed the man was just trying to make him listen, using that old whisper trick to get him to lean in, but when he looked up, Mieczyslaw was slouched back in the chair and staring over John’s head. “I had to see for myself. She would never tell me, when they were thick on her, and now it’s too late for her.”

“She didn’t want to bother you,” John said mechanically.

Mieczyslaw snorted. His eyes came down and fixed on John, and then he snorted again. His teeth showed a little behind his lips, a quick flash. “She did not like me, John.”

“Ah…okay,” John said, because he didn’t have anything else.

Another moment of silence, and then Mieczyslaw heaved his shoulders. “And you called.”

“I figured you should know—since I didn’t know about the seer thing, and I just—it’s been a lot and I was hoping at least fam—shit, Stiles. Look, if it’s the name, we can just change it—”

“John, this is not how it works,” Mieczyslaw said slowly.

And suddenly, John was angry again, and back on his feet. “Well, all right, goddamn it, then tell me how it works! Tell me and make me a believer, damn it!”

This, apparently, was the way into Mieczyslaw’s good graces, because the other man stood up and put his hand out, and when John tentatively raised his to meet it, batted past his fingers to clasp his forearm. “I will show you,” Mieczyslaw said, looking deeply into John’s eyes. “You will see how it works. We start tonight, with her.”


	3. Now

“Just so you know, Melissa’s on her way. Victoria’s driving her over,” Parrish says as Peter steps into the office. 

Peter stops. “Why are they coming _here_? Talia’s probably at the preserve by now.”

“Because of whatever you have in your trunk and…and where’s Scott?” Parrish forces his way past Peter out the door, and then looks nervous when Peter simply takes that opportunity to duck past him. “Hey—hey! Look, I know you’re worried, but I don’t think that taking it out on—”

“I haven’t even seen Scott, let alone murdered him, and why does everyone think I have it out for him?” Peter says, rolling his eyes. He slows up a little, because unfounded assumptions aside, Parrish is a hellhound and is capable of slowing Peter up even more, and Peter likes these jeans. “Is John still in his office?”

“Because you _do_ have it out for him?” Parrish says, whipping around to stalk Peter’s heels. “Why aren’t you going out with your sister?”

“Well, considering he managed to get Stiles hospitalized during a grocery run, _four times_ , can you blame me?” Peter snaps over his shoulder, taking a corner. He sidesteps Braeden by taking the coffee from her hand while she’s pulling out her gun, then swinging to hand it to Parrish so he crosses her line of sight instead. “I’m not in the preserve because I’m trying to find Stiles, not kill people. If you’re looking for that, you should be pointing all of your teams at Talia.”

Parrish tries to mug an apology face at Braeden and follow Peter at the same time, and almost slams his face into the wall. When he pulls himself up, an unamused Braeden, safety on her gun still off, is holding her hand out. A moment later, when he’s realized that he is, in fact, the one Peter saddled it on, he makes a face and gives her back her coffee and she pointedly continues walking towards the parking lot, holstering her gun as she goes. Then he hurries back towards Peter, who’d paused just long enough to enjoy the sight but who has far too much of a head start now to—

“John!” Peter says, just keeping his tone out of yelp range at the man’s sudden and very close appearance.

“He got Stiles to a hospital times two, four and five because my son can’t tell the difference between a trance and severe blood loss,” John says dryly. He’s in the middle of throwing on his coat and his voice drops to grunts for a couple seconds. Then he gets the shoulders straightened out and looks up at Peter. “He’s not dead, Peter.”

“Five?” Peter hisses.

John pauses, then winces and reaches behind himself to shut his office door. “Okay, pretend you didn’t hear that.”

“Absolutely, just as soon as you tell me why Stiles missed lunch and which of those idiotic friends of his convinced him saving other people was more important,” Peter says.

“Peter, you remember my job’s to…” John sighs and turns as if he’s going past Peter, only to duck into the dogleg containing the back-up coffeemaker. “Never mind. Look, he’s fine, _Allison_ is with him. Scott’s off with Derek trying to head off your sister. I’m sure as soon as you two make up, he’ll start having lunch with you again.”

And then the man gets a coffee. Takes his time about it, popping open the top of the machine and sniffing, then using a napkin to swab around the cavity before he inserts a fresh cartridge. Parrish wanders off, but at least it’s to make himself useful: Victoria’s harsh tones briefly ring out from the reception area, then get cut off as Parrish hustles the woman somewhere else.

“We’re not fighting,” Peter says.

John glances over at him, grimaces again, and adds another sugar packet to his coffee. “He skipped out on lunch, Peter. Look, you know how this goes, acting like you don’t know just makes it last longer. And I’m not saying that he’s right, and that whatever you did wasn’t—I do not get into that. I’m just saying this is how you two fight.”

“We’re not fighting,” Peter repeats, more slowly. Then he takes a step closer to the coffeemaker, so that he’ll be fully shielded by the dogleg from anyone walking down the hall. “We’re not. We had a perfectly ordinary night in, and breakfast was the same, and the last time he texted me just a little before lunch would have happened.”

“Did you text him anything after that?” John asks.

“No, he had the last word. I’d—I’d know if we were fighting, and we’re not fighting. He just didn’t show up for lunch, and isn’t responding to any of my messages, and I want to know why,” Peter says, leaning forward.

John looks at him, bringing up the cup to sip from it and then lowering it so that either Peter backs off or Peter puts his sweater in danger of sloshed coffee. The man is still one hundred percent human, and if he wasn’t the father of the one person on earth Peter has never seriously wanted to kill, Peter would do something about that casual presumption of his.

“You know I can just put you in the armory to cool off till he comes in,” John says. “We’ve still got a pillow in there for you.”

The Stilinskis are not mindreaders, Peter reminds himself. They’re just…eminently capable of doing that to him, damn them. “John. Listen to me. I have absolutely no reason to believe that Stiles and I are fighting. All I know is his last message said don’t traumatize the cooks, he’d make do with the matzo ball soup, and then he didn’t show up for lunch. I don’t know what he’s doing, what he’s working on, or why he wouldn’t tell me about it.”

A crease started to fold its way across John’s forehead. Then another one. “So you don’t know he’s working?”

“No, I just said—he’s _working_?” Peter says. “I actually _should_ be talking to McCall?”

“No,” John says, looking pained. He takes his phone out, then glances at Peter’s face and hesitates. Then he sighs and turns around and gestures for them to go back into his office. “Why was he worried about you traumatizing people?”

“Oh, for—there is nobody in my car trunk. Nobody. Nobody dead or alive. My trunk’s contents at the moment consist of a spare tire, a jack, an air pump, three pounds of kosher salt, a set of clean clothes and Chris Argent’s taser, all right?” Peter says, walking in and taking a seat. “Those tasteless morons just took the borscht off the menu. It’s fine, I’ll deal with that after.”

John doesn’t leave the doorway, forcing Peter to twist about and meet his slightly tired stare over the top of the chair. “Since when does Stiles like borscht?”

“He loves their borscht. They do it in the Ukrainian style,” Peter says.

The pained expression on John’s face briefly veers towards chagrin and Peter mentally chastises himself for the slip-up; it’s never a winning argument whenever he digs into the few differences between Stiles and John.

“He’s not really working,” John then says, before Peter can try and distract him from the damage.

“You just said he was,” Peter says. “Parrish just said he was, if I’m supposed to be looking for Scott McCall—”

“You don’t need to look for Scott, I told you, he’s going after—”

“And if you and Talia are fighting, then _you’re_ working,” Peter says.

John’s expression provides all the curse-words necessary. Then he steps into the office, slurping down the rest of his coffee. He tosses the cup into his trashcan and walks to where he and Peter can see each other without straining their necks, but still doesn’t sit down. “I’m not fighting with your sister. Why do you have Chris’ taser?”

“She has your phone. You’re fighting with her,” Peter says. Then rolls his eyes when John starts to reach into his pocket. “That’s your back-up, John. She has your main phone and honestly, it cannot be so terrible that—”

“You’re werewolves, you’ve been going at it with hunters like the Argents for decades, you’re from Beacon Hills, I know, I know,” John mutters, looking away. His eyes float over the many piles of paper entrenching his desk, and then he settles on one and stoops down to try and weasel a file from out of its middle. “Look, it’s not like that. Nobody’s died. You know Chris has been looking for that for two weeks? He thought maybe one of the wannabe Satanists got it, and set up a whole bunch of new wards in case enough of his DNA was still on it that they could cast something from—”

Peter had come to John in the first place because, since he’s trying to find Stiles and not to kill anyone, that seemed like a much more effective way to achieve his goals with minimum alibis needed. He’s starting to think he chose wrong. “John, _what is he doing_?”

“He’s just doing his job,” John sighs, finally tugging the last corner of the file out. He starts to turn, then hisses and slaps his hand against the wobbling paper stack. “I mean his real job. Not the ones he keeps making up because he can’t help himself, and you know he was like that even when we moved away and he didn’t see Scott, right?”

The folder is well within Peter’s reach, so Peter helps himself to the contents. Then ignores the annoyed noise John makes when he realizes he’s holding an empty folder. He flips rapidly through the sheets once, scanning for photos and dates, and then goes back to the beginning and starts reading.

John exhales like he might comment, but doesn’t, and instead gets off his knee and goes to lean against his desk. He’s texting with someone, the one time Peter looks up. Probably to do with Talia, and why it sounds like Victoria is still here rather than doing what she’s good at and murdering people who weren’t threatening her family so much as accidentally there with Scott McCall.

“There was some chatter about ghost sightings at the old factory again, so Stiles is checking it out in case there actually is a spirit to shoo over the line,” John says without raising his head. “No casualties worse than some spooked teens and a bunch of trespassing charges to keep the sheriff happy.”

“Fortunate that he’s so easy to please, just give him his due in impressionable young minds to terrorize,” Peter mutters as he goes back to the print-outs. 

They’re fairly skeletal, just Reddit and social media screenshots plus a clearly Stiles-made timeline that marks out the various sightings against a basic occult calendar. Peter gets out his phone and checks a few of the URLs in hopes of more details, but doesn’t turn up any details that couldn’t simply be overactive imaginations and the preserve’s love of horror-movie paredolia. There’s certainly nothing that would merit a fullblown psychopomp investigation, let alone Stiles handling it.

“Before you ask, yeah, I know, but Natalie Martin stopped by yesterday to mention that it’s trending as the latest locker-room dare. Homecoming is coming up and that place is a death-trap even without the supernatural, and I figured we should head off anything early,” John says, finally getting out of his phone. Not to speak to Peter, really—he twists around his desk, looking annoyed, and stoops to tap a few times at his laptop. Then he shuts that and starts pulling open drawers and taking Druidic ceremonial knives out of them. “Stiles said he was bored and free.”

“Well, he might have been yesterday, but today he was supposed to have lunch with me,” Peter says.

“Yeah, I noticed that,” John says. He pokes one of the knives with his finger and the lights flicker. Looking even more annoyed, he picks it up and twists it around till he finds a rusty-red fleck on the flat of the blade. He huffs at it, then rubs it with his shirt-cuff. Then huffs it again. “Look, let’s just…work back through this, all right? When’s the _last_ time you two had a fight?”

Then he looks up at Peter. He blinks, then makes a face at the will o’ the wisps that have sprung up all around them. One loops towards his head and he immediately jerks about and glares at it. While it’s frozen, he lifts his left hand, gestures, and everything goes back to normal. He lets out a tired exhale, shuffles at the papers on his desk, and turns up a sheath that is obviously too big, but he shoves the knife into it anyway and then tosses it into the workbag sitting on the chair behind the desk.

“Peter, if something wasn’t up with the two of you, Stiles wouldn’t be this shitty about coordinating his lies. So let’s just take it as a given that he’s mad at you, for whatever reason, and okay, he hasn’t gotten around to telling you yet,” John says. Then pauses. “Okay, what?”

“John, that’s a Cathbad-blessed dagger,” Peter says. “Is this why you’re not talking to Talia? Did you stop another darach and you didn’t tell her and now you’re skipping date-night dinner to suck the vengeful souls of its victims into soul-jars before they can possess us all?”

“I’m doing inventory,” John says, straight-faced.

Sometimes Peter wonders whether his family’s taste in men is the subject of a curse. It’s entirely possible, considering who they’ve crossed over the past few generations, and he certainly isn’t going to admit to any other reason why, in this one area of their lives, he and Talia have repeatedly made the exact same mistake. “Do you actually expect me to believe that?”

“Well, why do you think I’m not talking to her?” John mutters. He puts the rest of the knives away and picks up the work-bag, then gives Peter an exasperated look. “It’s not a darach, okay? Can we just leave it at that?”

“I think that depends entirely on whether you’re going to explain to me why I shouldn’t just move on to testing for possession,” Peter says. “Since now that I think about it…”

“Peter, this isn’t out of character for either of us and you know it.” John locks up his desk and slings the bag’s strap over his shoulder, then slouches back on his heel. “Look. I don’t know what’s eating him, but something is. And while the answer to that is, you need to talk, _we_ both know he’s got to be ready for that. And in the meantime, the best thing you can do is sit down and try to figure out what it is, so when he tries arguing with you, you can beat him at it.”

With that, John rounds his desk and walks by Peter. He pauses at the door to run his fingers over the protective runes carved all around the frame, then clicks off the light. Then opens the door and stands halfway in the hall, looking expectantly over his shoulder.

Unfortunately, he’s right. “This is why Talia was worried about Stiles and my getting together,” Peter mutters, levering himself out of the chair. He catches the flicker in John’s eyes and indulges himself with a sarcastic smile. “Oh, no, it wasn’t that I’d get tired of this. It’s that you’d end up being even _more_ of a mentor figure to me.”

“You remember I’ve shot you, right?” John says.

“Yes, yes, and I take it your plan is to let her run around the preserve until you feel up to telling her what you’ve done now and how it’s interfered yet again with your ability to feel a little normal?” Peter says. “You remember the last time you did that, she took over what was left of Blackwood’s pack and now Kali’s all cozy with Victoria Argent?”

John’s expression doesn’t change as he shuts the door behind them. “Just a heads-up there, the twins were helping Stiles interview people at the high school this morning.”

Meaning this has been going on at least two days, since Peter knew where Stiles was all of yesterday. It stings. Peter doesn’t let it show. “The twins can barely remember which of them is supposed to be the head.”

“Look, Peter, if you don’t want to take a hint and talk to Lydia, I can’t really help out any more today. I have to let Melissa yell at me, and then I have to figure out why Victoria’s here when I thought she was heading back to Washington,” John says, sighing. He starts to wave for Tara, who’s been loitering at the other end of the hall, then looks back at Peter. “If he decides to sleep over, I can give you a call, but I don’t really think he will. He’ll probably have thought of an excuse by then.”

“He already has,” Peter says, realizing _why_ Victoria Argent isn’t leaving. “Fine. I’ll make you a deal. I take Victoria, and you tell Stiles when you see him that I _completely_ understand and I’ll take all of his meetings for next week.”

The way John’s expression screws up confirms both that he thinks the same thing about Victoria and that whatever he has going on, it’s bad enough that he can’t not take Peter up on that. Which, honestly, is starting to penetrate Peter’s seething worry over Stiles, so on top of everything else, Peter’s going to have to get involved in his sister’s love life again. Damn it.

“Peter,” John says, as Peter tries to start off before he has to intervene with Derek’s relationships next. “Taser?”

“Oh, for—I’ll give it to Victoria, all right?” Peter says.

“Okay, seriously, you know they’re still not talking over that stunt Chris and Allison pulled two weeks ago with the skinwalk—hell with it.” John exhales again, then shoulders his bag and stalks off to go bring that exasperated regret of his to some other corner of the town. “Can’t fix it all, Stilinski, just get your own goddamn house in order…”

Peter slows down, listening, but John doesn’t mumble anything else and what he had said, he’s said in situations ranging from dropping a brand-new phone on concrete to coming home to a houseful of warring alphas. His people aren’t that frantic either, seeing as they still have time to give Peter meaningful looks as he walks by them. It probably isn’t much more than John forgetting he lives with a pack now. Probably.

“Hale,” Victoria snorts, narrowing her eyes as she taps those fetish-perfect nails of hers against the reception desk. “We need to talk.”

“Of course,” Peter says with a smile. “I couldn’t agree more.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Borscht to most Americans is a thin beet-flavored beef broth. Which can be perfectly delicious in and of itself, particularly if it comes with pierogies, but in actual borscht Europe, I understand it comes in a spectrum from broth to a stew that will hold your spoon upright in it if you let go.


	4. Then

Even years later, John remained a little ashamed to admit it, but burying Claudia had been the easiest part. Mostly because it was so complicated: per her father, her body needed to be interred with great care to make sure that it wasn’t stolen or otherwise misused for black-magic purposes. This turned out to involve so many goddamn rites and rituals that John honestly didn’t have the time to think about what was really going on.

Quitting his job and pulling Stiles out of school had been harder, because he actually had had to face people and explain to them what was going on, all of which had been lying through his teeth. Not that much, because the cover story had been so elaborate that if he had let himself lose focus for a second, he could’ve gotten lost trying to keep it all straight, but he had had a couple bad moments—all of them to do with Scott and Stiles. 

“Well, you can still email and call, and I’m sure once the Stilinskis get settled again, we can think about a visit,” Melissa had consoled her son. 

In front of Stiles, who had looked so desperately hopeful that John, like an ass who hadn’t seen his kid be that happy in months, had agreed with her. Mieczyslaw had promptly ripped him a new one for it.

“I told you that we must make a clean break,” Mieczyslaw had scolded him. “We have much to learn in very little time. If these are good people, you are putting their lives in danger and you cannot tell them why.”

“Look, I’ll handle it,” John’d snapped back. “I’ll clean up the trail. Nobody’s going to trace us to them.”

“Their blood is on your head,” Mieczyslaw had just muttered, before handing John another giant dusty book to squint through.

Learning magic had been better, not the least because John could actually talk to Stiles about it and they both needed some distractions. Stiles was smart, too, and had already been asking a ton of questions about his mom and why they’d had to move, and once they’d started in on it, John had realized how _quiet_ Stiles had been about things this whole time. How out of the way he’d been.

How goddamn close John had really been to losing him.

Well, never again, and not just because if John fucked up this time, Claudia wasn’t there to pick up the pieces. And Mieczyslaw wasn’t even _close_ to an option. John did believe the man when he said he wanted Stiles to learn so he could take care of himself, but hell if the man knew how to raise a child.

“He’s not even old enough to drive!” John had found himself shouting at Mieczyslaw barely three months after they’d left Beacon Hills. “Listen, Stiles is my son, and I want him to learn this just as much as you, but you do _not_ take my goddamn son to the cemetery in the middle of the night and decapitate a goddamn vampire in front of him! And you goddamn well don’t do it while it’s trying to eat him!”

“That was not the plan,” Mieczyslaw had said stiffly, standing there at the kitchen sink, sloshing holy water over the broken-off spade blade in the bottom of it. “I do not use children as bait. I was defending him.”

“Well, I get that, but he shouldn’t have been there in the first place!” John had snapped. “What part of this is going to help him? The part where his mother died and now we’re almost getting him killed? The part where he doesn’t get a childhood? The part where he dies?”

At that, Mieczyslaw had slewed around and given John such a vicious glare that the next shout had stuck in John’s throat. The man was old, but by no means a spent force. “He is seeing already, John. If he knows the nightmare can be killed, he will be fearful but he will not be frozen when they come after him. And they will, because of who and what he is. You cannot hide him from that.”

“Then _I’m_ going to be the one goddamn taking them down, not him,” John had said, after catching his breath. He’d rocked back on one heel and yanked at his hair, the brief pain telling him that yes, this was in fact an argument he was having. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me, anyway? If there was a vampire or whatever the hell around and you thought it was a threat, I’m the one with an actual concealed-carry license and—”

“You don’t kill,” Mieczyslaw had said.

John had looked at him. “Since when?”

“It is hard when you are already grown,” Mieczyslaw had said, slow like John wasn’t going to be able to follow English. “When you are young, the first time is hard, yes, but you have the time to grow into it.”

“That is bullshit,” John had said after a long second. “Bullshit. I’ll goddamn kill whatever I have to goddamn kill, and you do not take my son out on that kind of thing without talking to me first. Or hell, you showed me what to do with Claudia, I can do that to you if I have to.”

Mieczyslaw had stopped pouring the holy water at that. In fact, he had actually turned completely around and fully faced up to John. He’d done that for long enough that the adrenaline started to wear off and even the anger started to go away—not really, not deep inside, but that first rush that could power John through the fact that this was one, his father-in-law and one of two people who made up all he had left of Claudia, and two, a guy who’d killed a vampire by crunching its head off with a spade—that went away. John wasn’t by nature a violent man; he didn’t like feeling like he wanted to hurt people.

“All right,” Mieczyslaw had finally said. “Tomorrow.”

“Fine,” John had muttered, and gone upstairs to sit with his son and read through endless tracts of vampire lore with him and let them both act like Stiles’ voice didn’t crack every third word and like John wasn’t hugging him every time it did.

So Mieczyslaw got him started on the practical side of being someone who tended to see strange things other people didn’t want them to see, and it was not pretty, or easy. John got beaten up a lot, and getting into the best shape of his life with magic to back him up didn’t exactly help how it felt to wake up as a walking bruise. He had to meet a lot of people who he really could’ve done just fine with never, ever meeting, and yeah, he did kill some of them. Which was also not really how he had imagined his life going.

But Stiles was safe, and if he was reciting spells, at least he wasn’t stopping and looking a little too long every time they passed a mother and son, and Mieczyslaw at least respected John enough to not pull that bullshit a second time. Which did not, unfortunately, mean Stiles never got into life-threatening situations again, but at least that had to do with Stiles being Stiles and not Stiles’ grandfather being an old-fashioned see-which-of-‘em-lives jackass. John could work with Stiles. Wasn’t easy, but he could work with his son, and they could both get good enough to the point that John could spend a day or two away from Stiles and not worry about what he might be coming home to.

And just like that, only two years after Claudia’s death, John found himself a consultant with a U-Haul full of rare weapons and an open-ended government contract.

“Jesus Christ,” he ended up saying, sitting down at the kitchen table. “I’m doing this for a _living_.”

“Magic does not make money, unless you sell your soul to the dark, and then money is useless to you,” Mieczyslaw replied.

John stared at him. Mieczyslaw continued to serenely funnel a garlic-mountain ash mixture into cored bullets. When he had a full set, he pushed them into a perfect line, screwed on the silver tips, and deftly scooped them up with a plastic loader. Occasionally he’d stop to sip at his black Turkish-style coffee, or to glance up at the ceiling, where Stiles was supposed to be sleeping but was actually probably interrogating recently-dead spirits, based on the bits of ectoplasm that would leak down to swirl around the lone bulb over the kitchen table.

“I think you’ve been fucking with me,” John said. He watched Mieczyslaw exorcise a blob of ectoplasm that’d ventured down to head-level and that had been beginning to grow features: the man didn’t put down his loader or his coffee. “Not the magic part. The part where we’re in danger.”

That got him the loader going down on the table, but Mieczyslaw still kept hold of the mug. “Then you do not want these bullets?”

“Of course, I want them, I have three house-calls and a haunted tractor-trailer to—no, I meant, the part where instead of just—just burying my wife and taking care of my son, I ditched my job and my house and my life and now I’m sitting in a Texas ax-murder house and getting paid money so black-ops that my IRS auditor’s got a security clearance higher than the House Speaker,” John snapped. He pushed himself back from the table and got up, and took one step towards the stairs. He was going to tell Stiles to just stop and give the poor ghosts a break, they couldn’t really help what homicide had done to their sense of chronological time, and then he _knew_ his father-in-law was raising a brow at him. So instead he twisted around. “Honestly, was this really what you wanted? Is this really what you think your family’s supposed to be doing?”

Mieczyslaw’s brow didn’t drop an inch. “This is what we have always done.”

“Yeah, and how did that work out for you?” John muttered. They’d had this discussion enough times, he knew he’d be getting that answer.

“Not well,” Mieczyslaw said, just as John was turning away. When John turned back, forgetting how close he was to the chair, the other man waited for John to stop cursing and holding his foot and to sit back down. “Not the worst—I am alive, my daughter lived to have a son. But Claudia is dead now, and she did not like me when she was not dead.”

They had not actually talked about that, not since that night. John had ended up in a couple barfights avoiding the subject, biting his tongue back about it to the point that only bottom-shelf tequila was going to cut the sting, but now that it looked like they were going to have this talk, he…he glanced to the side. He was out of coffee.

The coffee machine was on the other side of Mieczyslaw, and Mieczyslaw hadn’t blinked yet. “I do not think she was right in how to raise a family,” he said. “You cannot ignore your blood. But I do not like that she died alone.”

“You said—”

Suddenly Mieczyslaw dropped his eyes to the bullets in his hand. The metal winked the low light into his hair, exposing white strand after strand creeping into the vigorous steel-gray. “I was right to say that. She was not herself anymore, and she did not know who her family was. She could have cursed you and Stiles. But…I do not _like_ that that was right. You understand?”

John pressed his lips together. His back ached. So did his knees. He’d been up late last night, and the night before that, and up early both mornings because if he was going to have to move Stiles around the entire country, he damn well was going to make Stiles’ disciplinary meetings with the principal. Own up to what you’ve done, his father had told him, and that’d been the only thing the man had ever said that John had ever bothered listening to, mostly because his father hadn’t.

He was kind of old for all of this and Stiles wasn’t even driving yet.

It was a stupid thought, but once it popped into his head, John couldn’t stop thinking it. He snorted and then had to grimace it off when Mieczyslaw looked up at him. The other man kept looking, because there wasn’t ever an embarrassing moment John’s father-in-law couldn’t stare six feet into the ground, and then Mieczyslaw suddenly got up.

“Hey—” John started, but the other man waved him to be silent.

Mieczyslaw went out of the room, leaving John blinking in disbelief, and returned before disbelief could turn into irritation. He had a hip flask in one hand and one of those giant tattered books he was always pulling out of thin air, like they were swords from that _Highlander_ show. The book got thumped down in front of John, then opened to a two-page spread covered with spidery dark brown lines so intricate that Mieczyslaw got down two swallows from the flask before John realized it was a family tree.

“Demon,” Mieczyslaw said, sticking his finger on a tiny caption in the middle of the right page. “Stake. Stake. Hanged. Demon. Drowned. Suicide. Stake.”

“Wait, this is your family?” John said. “Stake? I thought vampires—”

The side of Mieczyslaw’s mouth twitched. “Burned at.”

“Oh. Right.” John watched Mieczyslaw work all the way down one page, only to drag that fingertip back to the top, move over an inch, and start on another line. “Okay, look, I get it—”

“No, you don’t.” Mieczyslaw drank more of that godawful homemade brandy somebody in Poland shipped to him packed in heritage-pattern wheat-dolls and cheap souvenir dishes. “We die like this. We see, and see, and then someone sees us. And all these things I have taught you, they do nothing about that. I have taught you how to see, and what to see and when to see. I have showed you what to do when they come for you. But when _you_ are seen…this I have not taught you, because I do not know it myself.”

“Well, that doesn’t mean—it doesn’t mean it can’t be figured out,” John said. “Just because you don’t know—you don’t know every single goddamn thing out there, Mieczyslaw.”

The other man leaned back and John tensed up. Why, he wasn’t sure; Mieczyslaw never got physical except when he was killing something. Maybe it was the way the man was looking at him, not contemptuous or bemused, but intently focused on John, like there was actually something worth the man’s time.

“I think this is why she loved you,” Mieczyslaw finally said.

“What?” John said.

Mieczyslaw ticked his head slightly, annoyed, and then downed another slug of brandy. Then he raised the flask-holding hand and jutted his index finger at John, like it was the muzzle of a silver-plated pistol. “John, you are working for the federal government. _They_ see you.”

“Yeah, well, how the hell else am I supposed to pay for…for custom ammunition? You tell me that, you should’ve figured that out by now,” John snapped. He pushed back in his chair, then grabbed his mug and got up to refill it, and to hell with the stares. “I learned every goddamn thing you threw at me and I got good enough at it to _get_ paid for it, and you still don’t like me.”

“No, I do not,” Mieczyslaw said, getting up. He pushed the bullets to one side and carried his mug over to the sink, giving it a quick rinse before setting it down. “I do not take money from the government, John.”

“You take it from somebody, and it damn well isn’t me,” John said, still sore, even though that was one of the few things he didn’t mind about Mieczyslaw, that the man had never asked John for money, nor demanded that John have it.

“I work hard, John,” Mieczyslaw said, and then he walked out of the kitchen.

John stood there for a few minutes, till the coffeemaker beeped to signal that it was done percolating. He put one hand on the handle of the pot, then took it off. Then put it back on, then took it off again and swung into the hall, swearing under his breath. But instead of Mieczyslaw, he found Stiles. Sitting on the third step from the bottom, blanket lumped up over his lap and one shoulder, clutching the tablet that John had broken down and bought him because some of the grimoires were still too heavy for him to carry around by himself.

“Dad,” Stiles said, a trace of fake surprise in his voice. Then, as John was inhaling to just tell his kid it wasn’t his fault, Stiles transparently decided it wasn’t worth pretending, and just looked up at John. “So, Granddad. He’s kind of…”

“Yeah. Yeah. Just…kind of,” John said slowly. He paused, then pivoted around and sat down next to Stiles. Tried not to let his throat get too tight when Stiles automatically fluffed the blanket over his knee. “I guess you heard, and you’re—you’re probably old enough now, so look, my job—”

Stiles made a face, then hunched hastily over. “Dad, I kind of knew you weren’t just an engineering consultant. I mean, take away the calculator and what you do with algebra is really terrib—I mean. It’s okay. I know, and it’s not—I’m not—you need to do it. I know.”

Then again, if John didn’t want to sound like he was talking through a rusty pipe, he probably should have gotten that cup of coffee. “Well, actually, son, I…don’t. Need to do it. I think…I think we’re going to stop now.”

“In Texas?” Stiles yelped.

“What? No, are you kidding me?” John said. He patted his son on the back till Stiles’ pupils stopped dilating, then breathed out with the kid. “No, I just meant—stop the government work. There’s obviously other ways to make a living with all this, and you need…you’re getting to the age you need friends, not just people I bring home because hell if I know where else to send them, and…don’t worry about your grandfather either. I’ll figure something out.”

“I think he really wishes he could do that,” Stiles said after a moment. Darting a look at John, before pretending it didn’t happen and his tablet is more important instead. “I’m pretty good now, you know. I haven’t accidentally lured over a demon in weeks, and I only tell people what their dead loved ones really thought on purpose—that woman cut in front of us, she deserved to know her mother-in-law hated her casserole.”

“Not in a Target express check-out, she didn’t,” John said. Then he didn’t block the elbow Stiles jabbed into his side, smiling over his son’s head. “Okay, so we’ll find a place to settle down and get you into high school, at least—”

“Can we go see Scott?”

John stopped because he didn’t trust his throat. He didn’t really trust his face either, so he didn’t look down at Stiles, but that was pretty useless since it wasn’t like he couldn’t feel Stiles’ stare anyway. Going back there—the nice thing about being on the road so much, it’d kept John from even having to think about what that might be like. Doing all the things they’d used to, only without Claudia with him. Leaving had been—had been easy.

“I mean, if it’s still not safe, because of what took down Mom—it is almost summer, and I got Melissa to let slip that she was finally getting money out of his jerk dad so maybe he can come see us?” Stiles asked, in a small voice that was retreating even as he tried to push out the words. “I just—thought maybe we could…if we’re not doing things civilians can’t see and…”

Easy, hell. Sometimes Mieczyslaw had John pegged, and it had nothing to do with second sight or extra intuition or anything like that. “Yeah, we can loop back there,” John said, trying not to sound like his chest had just been punched in, which was how he felt.

Judging from the ecstatic look on Stiles’ face, he managed it. But this was going to be a shitshow, John thought as he got up to put Stiles back to bed. No way around it, he was going to regret this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Garlic's use as an anti-evil charm traditionally extended beyond vampires.


	5. Now

Victoria Argent has been a werewolf for almost as long as she and Chris have been separated, but you can’t tell that from the way she constantly tries to will to death every single member of the Hale family she runs across. “For the last time,” Peter snaps, shoving the taser at her. “We weren’t even _in town_. Unlike your dear departed father-in-law.”

“If I wanted to talk about that apostate, I’d do it over a dead body,” Victoria says, icily clicking along beside him. She takes the taser without any questions.

“Ah, now you’re speaking my language,” Peter says. 

He smiles at her. Her eyes flick over and then flick forward. Objectively she’s not an unattractive woman, especially now that she’s dropped the harsh scarlet rinse and let her hair fade to its natural strawberry, but every inch of her is angled to slice. Which is pretty rich, considering that _she’s_ come to _him_. He could and should just chitchat with her long enough to qualify as fulfilling his deal with John, and then leave her and her gratingly clicky heels to get on with things that actually improve his quality of life, like finding Stiles.

“What the hell is your sister up to?” Victoria demands once they’ve exited the office.

“It’s so amusing how you think I have any say in what Talia does whatsoever,” Peter says. “Also, I applaud your investigatory skills. Truly. Obviously, if Melissa is driving over to see John, it’s my _sister_ who’s causing all of the drama. Must be time to burn another house down.”

For some reason, John has his office at the end of a strip mall that also contains a Chinese restaurant, a laser-tag place, and a UPS store. The UPS store is fine, they know which packages to sort immediately into the bomb-proof freezer. The wrinkled old woman who appears to be top dog at the Chinese restaurant is always shorting Peter on fortune cookies, but she’s more than happy to hire teenage werewolves for the night delivery shift, which is foresight he can respect. The laser-tag place, on the other hand, is constantly spilling out annoying huddles of chattering teenagers who seem to think nothing of bumbling up against strangers.

“Excuse yourself,” Victoria says, arms crossed over her chest, not looking over at the latest cannon fodder. 

“Hey, you’re standing right in the middle—”

Victoria growls. Not quite loud enough for the teenagers to recognize that that’s what’s making them jumpy, but loud enough that Peter caves and steps in to shoo them towards the door. “And here I thought you’d made peace with the idea of being a werewolf.”

“We don’t need more bystanders to worry about,” Victoria snaps at him.

Peter spreads his hands. “Again, not my decision.”

A little blue glow leaks into her eyes. He has to work hard to keep from smiling at her. Not because he feels any urge whatsoever to calm her down—the complete opposite, in fact. Scion of one storied hunter line, married into another, and it didn’t take her more than a few days after healing from her bite to change her eyes. Peter at least waited till he was seventeen.

“I’m not talking to you because I want to, Hale,” Victoria says, after visibly struggling to fight back the shift. “Talia’s going to put us all at risk if she keeps going like this, treating the preserve like it’s her private park. We just got the police back on board after that fiasco with the sabbat, and the last thing we need is them thinking _they_ need to be out in force.”

“And _again_ , it’s very flattering that you think I have any say over Talia,” Peter says dryly. There’s a burr in his pocket and he pulls out his phone, more for the ready-made excuse to slide by her than any real desire to check messages, only to freeze when he sees Stiles’ Cthulhu avatar pop up.

At least he believes he freezes, but his phone unaccountably jiggles half out of his fingers. He steadies it, biting back a curse, and checks the message: _sorry about lunch got held up. not dead, don’t murder scott. make-up dinner work for you?_ 🐺🍆.

Peter snorts. Then remembers he’s already determined this isn’t just a simple schedule snafu and Stiles has some significant explaining to do.

“…just talk to Derek if you’re going to ignore me,” Victoria says.

“Well, if you’d like your daughter to wake up to your and Kali’s heads on sticks,” Peter snaps, looking up. Then he rolls his eyes at the taser that’s reappeared in Victoria’s hand. “As if I’d actually give you Argents any kind of functioning weapon.”

“I was also under the impression you’d stopped that after your nephew,” Victoria says. Then she pulls her purse around and tucks the taser back into it, as if Peter shredding her and stuffing her in there with it isn’t a fully plausible and now highly likely scenario. “Look, Hale, if you’re going to pull the Stilinskis’ heads out of their asses, first we need to all not die. That’s not going to happen, the way your sister’s carrying on.”

“Oh, so you’ve noticed something else is wrong?” Peter drawls. A little weak, admittedly, but he’s devoting at least half of his concentration to keeping his jaw and vocal cords human enough for speech.

Victoria pushes her purse back under her arm. “Melissa came over to talk to John, and my _daughter_ is busy making sure that your so-called partner isn’t going to spend the weekend on the wrong side of the life-death divide again.”

Peter would happily kill her. He does understand that doing so won’t help him resolve the situation with Stiles, seeing as, unbelievable as it is given her and Chris’ deny-till-psychosis-happens parenting style, a number of people would try to kill him in return. Which all just goes to show, he thinks savagely, that he is clearly not a _total_ psycho.

“If you can find your daughter and she’s got Stiles with her, I will listen to whatever crackpot theories you have about my sister,” he says through gritted teeth.

He will give Victoria this, she cuts the chatter once she’s gotten what she wants. Even Chris has an irritating tendency to guilty mutters, but his ex-wife? Just turns on her heel and repeats her presumptuous stride out of the building.

“My car,” Peter says when they’re in the parking lot.

Victoria doesn’t object, but she does make a point of squirting hand sanitizer onto her palms after she’s buckled her seatbelt. “What has you so busy that you haven’t noticed Talia and John haven’t been talking for the last three days?” she asks as he pulls out. “Usually she has to spray you with wolfsbane to keep out of her business.”

“You recall that the last time an Argent thought they knew my family better than me, Kate ended up chopped in half in a sewer,” Peter says.

Doesn’t faze her a bit, as she pulls down the sunshade and touches up her lipstick. “Chris and I are divorced, and even when we weren’t, I didn’t let that woman anywhere near our stock.”

“Mmm-hmm, of course, and I’m sure you’re only keeping the name because it’s a little difficult to reapply for a federal firearms license when you have the same last name as a notorious serial killer,” Peter says. “Oh. Wait.”

“Eichen House,” Victoria says.

Peter stops a good yard earlier than he really needs to at the stoplight.

“They’re not patients. Allison’s with him. They’re interviewing people there,” Victoria says sharply.

She’s keeping tabs on him via peripheral vision, very studied about the way she casually never has to look at him. For werewolves that translates ambiguously: facially cautious but he knows her far too well to buy that. The mismatch between instinct and brain is making his teeth hurt where his fangs want to drop. “Why _is_ that place still operating?”

“Well, if they booted out all of the patients, are you going to volunteer for patrol to deal with it?” Victoria says.

Peter starts to point out the obvious solution to that, then stops himself. “Get to the point. Who did my sister kill, and—”

“Nobody’s died, Hale. If they had, it’d be Chris over instead of Melissa, and you and I would already be tearing each other to pieces,” Victoria tells him, tone flat but not bored. “She showed up to push Kali around last night, as if that was going to tell her what’s going on.”

“Historically, that’s been the correct answer two out of five pack massacres,” Peter reminds her.

“Both of those were really Blackwood and you know that. And Kali wasn’t even here till a couple hours before Talia stopped by. She was helping Ethan and Aiden move, and you _both_ knew that,” Victoria snaps back. She flips the sunshade up again and then meets his gaze head-on just as he’s looking her way to try and make a left turn. “There’s something going on, but we don’t have a body and nobody can really tell what happened, except for John, apparently.”

Peter sighs. “I thought your father-in-law was the one addicted to cryptic threats.”

“It’s not a—try and follow something besides your life for once,” Victoria says, crossing her legs as if she’s breaking Peter’s spine between them. “People keep showing up at the police station and the hospital and they’re disoriented, but nothing’s actually wrong. They go back and check out the scene and they’ve maybe lost a little time, but everything’s normal otherwise.”

“Hallucinogen. Are they high-schoolers? Does Chris actually do any mentoring with that outdoors club of his, or does he just use it as a convenient way to keep exposing Scott to young, foolish teenagers they can save together?” Peter says.

“ _I_ didn’t start stalking my exes just because I decided to let the bite take me,” Victoria says acidly. “Also, Hale, I said John knew what was going on.”

“What do—”

“He was interested right away. He told Melissa it wasn’t serious and he’d put down some more runestones in the preserve, so she let it go, but then he lied to her and she figured it out when she went over to return a flash-bomb he’d left and ran into Talia.” Then something catches Victoria’s attention and she starts digging in her purse, frowning and smelling of a slight trace of worry under all of the hostility. “Talia looked for new runestones and didn’t find anything, and then John started avoiding her. I thought he knew how to make up an alibi.”

She’s just needling at that point, because they both know John does and also know what it means if he’s slipping that badly. Which means that Peter is starting to regret not pressing the man more back at the office. If there’s something up, and Stiles is—

Stiles is almost certainly involved, and he’s clearly not thinking straight either, and he’s the one Peter knows he can talk to. John is Talia’s problem. “All right, not a hallucinogen, and if there had been obvious tracks, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. That still doesn’t explain why you’re bothering me instead of my sister. Unless you think I’m an easier target, which I thought I’d made clear when I—”

“This isn’t a trap, Peter. Do I look like Blackwood? Or Ennis?” Victoria mutters, looking at her phone.

“No, but you do look like someone who thought one of their cast-offs was worth salvaging,” Peter says.

Victoria snarls at him, eyes glowing, fangs out, the shift twisting the bones of her face. Peter rolls his eyes and takes the next turn harder than he strictly needs to, so that the momentum slings her back. She puts her hand against the door to brace herself, then snarls again, snatching it away from the sigils lighting up all across the upholstery.

“Not on the leather, please. It’s so hard to clean,” Peter says. “Certainly would cost more than I’d spend on your funeral.”

“I’m telling you so you can get your sister to come to her senses before she gets hurt. John isn’t talking to her but he’s talking to Chris, and he asked Chris to get him in touch with some very specialized firearms dealers. Demon-killing firepower, _apparently_ ,” Victoria snaps. She reseats herself, arms tightly pressed to her side to avoid touching the door, even though the runes have faded away. “Also, if you want to get there when Stiles still is around, you might want to stop dawdling. Allison says they’re finishing up.”

Peter growls at her, and then bites it back so hard he nearly chokes when a car almost sideswipes them in the intersection. His reflexes merge them smoothly into a pocket in the traffic, and then another, but it’s a moment before he can speak again. “Well, tell her to stall.”

“Tell your sister to stop bothering _John_ ,” Victoria insists.

“Oh, for—fine.” Peter gets out his phone and boots up the virtual assistant. “Message Talia. ‘Find Chris, he knows everything.’”

“That is not what I meant,” Victoria hisses.

“No?” Peter says, letting a slow smile play over his face, because he heard that hesitation before she spoke. “Well, would you rather she come talk to you again? Now tell your daughter—”

Victoria already has her phone to her ear. Peter grimaces and tries to throw her via another turn, but this time she has her heels planted in the floor. “Allison, Stiles hasn’t eaten yet, has he? Get him something, would you? We’ll meet you in the cafeteria.”

“If I didn’t want to rip you limb from limb, that would be very impressive,” Peter says after he fights back his shift.

“Just drive, Hale,” Victoria says. “You know as well as I do if Stiles catches on, she can’t keep him there. Nobody can, not even you.”

God, he wants to _kill_ her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Supernatural_ fans may recognize the demon-killing gun idea, although actually, _Hellblazer_ did it first.
> 
> I poked around multiple tutorials trying to figure out if I could insert an emoji without having to duplicate an entire phone screen, and nada. So frustrating that I can't just Unicode it. ETA: Fixed! Thanks, Eleint!


	6. Then

“Oh, my God, you’re so tall now!” Melissa McCall (minus the actual McCall, thank God, because John knew how to hide bodies now and did not have that much self-control) cried upon seeing Stiles.

She swooped Stiles up in a hug before Scott could get to him, and then swept both him and John into her house for lunch and catching-up and so much warm nostalgia that John sabotaged some of the food in the fridge so he had an excuse to make a grocery run for her. It was exactly as painful as he was afraid it would be, and the only upside was that Mieczyslaw had declined to come along, so at least the only people who might’ve picked up on his vibe were busy keeping Stiles happy.

He didn’t regret it, not with how Stiles really _was_ happy, but hell, he needed something to take off the edge. Which was probably how he ended up in the potato-chip aisle, wondering whether he could keep Stiles from hearing the crunching if he stashed the bag under the driver’s seat. It wasn’t going to be a drinking night, he was going to hold himself to that, so…potato chips were the next one over. And even if John had dropped the government contract, he still couldn’t shake some of the black-ops stake-out habits.

“…Stilinski?” said somebody.

A woman, in that half-high tone you use when you weren’t sure you actually wanted the person to hear you. John wasn’t _that_ removed from government work, so he pulled his phone out and used the reflection to check his back before he turned around.

Nobody. He stood there and a woman with two kids under ten marched by the far end of the aisle, reaching out to block their view of the fast-food trash with her hand. He didn’t know her.

He thought about it, and got one bag of healthy low-salt pita chips that looked a lot like the second bag of completely salted, unhealthy Blazin’ Cajun chips. The hearing thing wasn’t really the most reliable measurement now that Stiles was old enough to sweet-talk some of the more aware spirits into doing him favors, but ghost senses were…off. Like going from black and white film to color and back, Mieczyslaw had told him once (and then followed it up with a clip from _Schindler’s List_ , because the man was incapable of not being grim). He might be able to pass off the one for the other.

John toted the chips back to his cart and then went around the corner to the frozen-food section, where he picked up a pint of premium ice cream for Melissa, who’d mentioned the brand off-hand in a discussion about things parents gave up when it was time to buy new school supplies. The back of his neck was prickling, but he still didn’t see anybody who wasn’t actually shopping.

At checkout he nearly got the manager called out on him because he’d gone into the express line with nine items instead of the maximum eight. So yeah, he technically wasn’t supposed to use it, but there was nobody else in that line and it was almost nine-thirty.

And he was a normal guy, just making a last-minute grocery run, and nothing was going to get solved if he busted out a weapon or a cantrip, for God’s sake. He really needed to decompress from all of this action—there she was, at his seven o’clock acting like she was perusing the little bins of travel-size stuff topping the poles that marked out the checkout lines. 

Dark-haired, attractive, maybe his age (John didn’t even have to try to see through a glamour these days, but highlighting and contour cream still kind of threw him). Didn’t even strain when she lifted the family-plus size bottle of laundry detergent out of her cart. He let the cashier bitch him into stepping one line over, paid, and bagged his own groceries while she got her steak, steak, potatoes, ribs, kale, strawberry ice cream, prime rib, and ten big boxes of pre-soaked cleaning sponges scanned.

She got out into the parking lot first because John stopped to empty some used tissues in his pocket into the curbside trash can. She’d parked at the very far end of the lot, a good seven spaces away from anyone else, and was driving a pricy SUV, the kind that automatically opened the back as you walked up to it. John went over to the Jeep and tossed his bags into the back of it, keeping an eye on her right up till he dropped his keys trying to get them out of his pocket.

When he stood up, she was in his face, tips of her pumps just poking his shoes. He’d been expecting more of a side or back positioning, so the flash of his phone caught them both. “Shit,” John muttered, squinting and stepping back. Then he relaxed, recognizing the type of eye-glow. “Oh, werewolf.”

“Excuse me?” snarled the woman, who was suddenly grabbing his…

She looked down. John shrugged and pointedly put the safety back in, then extricated the muzzle of his gun from her hand and holstered it. “Okay, look, I’m sure they told you I work all hours, and I do, but also, I take time off in between jobs. That’s the nice thing about working for yourself,” he said, pulling out his phone. “So I’ll take your number and we can sit down tomorrow and talk about it.”

The woman stared at him. One of her brows kept trying to rise. Her gaze went up from John’s hand to his face, then down and left to—he hitched his shoulder before he could help himself, self-conscious about the scar and wishing he’d put his coat on before going out—and then back up to his face. “John, right? John Stilinski? You used to do that speed-trap behind the middle school?”

John grimaced, then took another look at her. Goddamn work habits—he used to _live_ here, of course he might run into…“Talia? Talia Hale? With the kid brother who was always vandalizing trees in the—oh, shit, those were territorial marks, weren’t they?”

Talia began to give him a tiny nod before she took an abrupt step back. Her one hand went up to hug under her breasts, so she wasn’t about to charge him, but she didn’t exactly look like they were going to just have the old acquaintance meet-up. Actually, she didn’t look like she knew what this was, period. “Did you…you didn’t know…” she started, and then her eyes narrowed. “Did you think I sneaked up on you because I wanted a meeting? A business meeting?”

“You didn’t?” John said, because honestly, he wasn’t sure what this was either.

“No! I just thought it was you, and nobody’s seen you since Claudia’s funeral and I just thought—” Her eyes widened. “Oh, my God, so _that_ was why she had all those anti-undead plants in her grave decorations. Peter was right, something was going on, he’s going to be so…so you’re not human?”

“No, I am,” John said.

Talia blinked hard. Then cocked her head back and up and gave him a good, long look. When she spoke again, she was considerably less chirpy. “But you know about werewolves, and you thought I wanted a meeting with you.”

“Well, I work with…people like that. Kind of,” John said. Shit, less than one day in this town and he was all over the place. He and Stiles had spent the entire drive here tossing around cover stories till Stiles could spit out their chosen one half-asleep and with his head stuffed under a coat, and here John couldn’t remember what the hell his job was supposed to be. “Not a hunter.”

“Glad to get that cleared up right away,” Talia said, still staring hard at him. Her other arm came up to join the first under her bust, and it was neither flirty nor fearful. “So…Claudia?”

“She’s really dead, you don’t need to dig her up,” John said sharply, and then he had to stop and press his hands against his legs to keep from doing something stupid.

Talia flinched a little. She glanced down, then shifted her weight from foot to foot before looking back up. “I heard she was sick, something neurological. I was—I’m sorry. That must not have been easy for either of you to live with.”

“Yeah,” John said, swallowing hard. And now would have been the moment to take the out and just thank her, but of course he didn’t think of that. “Wait. When did you—did you even know her?”

“John, we were in the same book club for five years,” Talia said, tilting her head. “I know you knew about that, you used to drop her off.”

“Oh. Right.” Claudia had always been trying to get John to at least come to the end of the month sessions, when they did a food exchange. She was ridiculously dedicated to keeping up with the reads—he still was reminded of that, whenever Stiles got into researching something. But he’d never made the time. Too busy taking late shifts at work, or going out with the other deputies, trying to do all the things he’d thought he should be doing in order to climb the ladder and make sure he could provide for his family.

His face must have shown everything, because Talia’s face softened up a lot. “So are you moving back?” she asked quietly. “Your son, he must be…I just went through the high school’s new-student orientation for my youngest, if you need any help with getting him set up.”

He hadn’t even really met any of the book club people. He kept up with them via Claudia passing along the gossip, but it’d been like paging through missing-person records: lists of facts paired with outdated photos. Claudia had had her hands full too, but she’d still kept up a personal life. And he’d known about it, kind of, but he hadn’t…known it. Just like with her family, the real story about them.

“Can we talk?” John blurted out. Then sighed and added relearning how to talk to people who weren’t asking him to kill supernatural things to his to-do list. “About Claudia. I just—since we’ve been away, I haven’t really had a chance to—we weren’t near anybody who knew her, and it’s just…it’s been a really long time.”

“Well, sure,” Talia said, and then she blinked as if she was a little confused about what she was doing too.

They looked at each other for a few seconds.

“I have a starving horde back at my place that needs feeding, but if you’re around tomorrow, I’m free in the afternoon,” Talia eventually added. “We could meet at—oh, it’s new since you left. There’s a coffeeshop across from the vet’s.”

That rang a bell: unusually high number of noise complaints on that block, which never turned out to have any source that the police could find. “I can just give my references to your Emissary,” John sighed.

“We really need to talk about that,” Talia said, startled into a little growling undertone. Then she tried to recover by smiling at him. “Trade for trade?”

“Yeah, sure,” John said. If she’d been a werewolf this whole time, she obviously was no pushover, but he wasn’t that worried for Stiles. Werewolves tended to be too caught up in vendettas or avoiding hunters to get too experimental with magic, and even when they did, it was defensive rather than bullshit psychotic stuff like black-market trading in seer eyeballs. Letting her in on them probably wasn’t going to raise their risk profile any more than they’d already done just by visiting Scott and Melissa, he figured.

And anyway, if he was going to come up with some way to support himself and Stiles that didn’t involve shady government agencies, he was going to need friends. They couldn’t all be Mieczyslaw, who’d eventually explained that he had a hefty pension from certain interested parties because he’d foreseen certain events and then had done something or nothing, depending on what kind of hell would have resulted. John had seen the kind of life that bankrolled and he wanted better for Stiles.

“Three-thirty?” Talia said.

“I’ll be there,” John said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One of the many, many annoying things about TW is they go and cast great actors for the thankless parent roles on a teen show (because you don't come for the parents), handwave away the parental subplots whenever they're not needed for spacing filler, and check out of most opportunities to explore like-parent, like-child characterization. Well, this story is _all_ about how Stiles didn't just drop out of a stork's beak.


	7. Now

Eichen House had gotten an overhaul since the last time Peter had had to step inside its doors. Completely new lobby, with angled skylights that allowed a lush pot garden to frame the waiting room. A pamphlet rack in soothing blue that contained literature on their extensive outpatient program, with photos that actually looked as if they’d been taken with real program participants. Nursing staff who didn’t have taser bulges under their scrubs.

“This place is creepy,” is how Peter’s nephew greeted him upon Peter’s arrival. “Everybody keeps asking me how are you and they don’t smell afraid or angry. That means they’re _all_ out to get us, doesn’t it?”

“Where’s my daughter?” Victoria demands, before Peter can determine if Derek arrived here with a newly-heightened sense of danger.

Then again, that might be one type of mental manipulation Peter will wait and observe before he asks Talia to do something about it. Speaking of which. “I thought you and McCall were supposed to be finding your mother.”

“Mom’s fine, she’s just annoyed John isn’t talking to her. She seemed okay just taking it out on one of the tunnels, so I was going to go back in an hour to get her,” Derek says. “And Allison’s out back and _wait_ , I need to tell you—”

Peter and Victoria twist on their heels to face Derek again, who stiffens a little, looking warily between them. “Out back in the cemetery?” Victoria snaps.

“No, actually,” Derek says. “That’s why I was waiting for you—Jordan called and said you two were—”

“The back-up morgue?” Peter asks.

“No—”

“The specimen room?” Victoria says.

Peter frowns. “I thought we firebombed that.”

“Well, you just need another room and some jars,” Victoria snorts. “I would’ve thought _you’d_ know, seeing as we all know not everything went up with the fire.”

“Look, can I just—they’re out in the _garden_ ,” Derek snaps. He even takes a step forward before Victoria’s pointed crossing of her arms over her chest stops him in his tracks. “Talking to people. Old people. We’re making a documentary about old-timey Beacon Hills, in case anyone asks.”

“Old-timey,” Victoria repeats.

Derek rolls his eyes. “Allison said that, not me. Anyway, before you two storm back there, I just wanted to let you know Stiles is being sort of weird so maybe don’t come screaming? He seems like he might just throw a headless ghost at you and then sneak off, and why are we making a documentary now? Does this have anything to do with why Mom’s fighting with—hey, is _anyone_ going to tell me what’s going on?”

That’s to Peter, who has to stay and wait for Derek because family and pack, while Victoria, being the disrespectful hunter-turned-werewolf that she is, stalks down the hallway towards the nearest nurse. Who looks somewhat more concerned and less drugged-to-complacency than Derek’s description had made out, but who still gives Victoria directions.

“You decided that your mother wasn’t upset enough to stay with, but you want to know what’s going on?” Peter sighs. 

He doesn’t want to stay any longer than he has to with Victoria, so he heads in the opposite direction. It’s the longer way, but he figures he can cut through the basement, so long as nobody’s reconverted that to a portal to Hell.

“Mom’s _upset_ , she’s not going to tell me anything besides how alphas don’t really run anything because they’ve got too much to do just keeping people from sacrificing themselves for the greater good because _hah_ , and where are you going?” Derek says, hurrying after and grabbing at Peter’s arm. He does do a very good impression of Talia, when none of the female members of the family are around, but it’s hardly worth a second look. “We need to go to the cafeteria.”

“No, we don’t. You need to go find your sister and explain to her that alpha-in-waiting does not mean competing with McCall to see who can drag up the most pathetic beta, and—”

“Stiles is in the cafeteria,” Derek says. And then has the temerity to look offended when Peter whirls on him. “Allison _is_ in the garden. So’s Scott. But I figured you might not want to have whatever talk you’re gonna have with Stiles in front of Victoria.”

Peter closes his mouth and straightens up. He keeps looking at Derek till the other man stops looking smug about finally learning how to fool a fellow werewolf and starts to fidget, and then he looks at the cuff Derek was trying to tug over his hand. Derek twitches, then hulks himself up to show off the truly exciting couple inches he’s gained on Peter, as if all there is to werewolf dominance is size. Then, rolling his eyes, Peter walks around Derek and goes down the hallway marked as leading to the cafeteria.

“You’re welcome, I’m so glad you thought of that,” Derek mutters from behind him, because of course Derek’s following.

“Yes, yes, I appreciate your momentary flash of brilliance about _lying_ to _Victoria Argent_ , Derek. Just as soon as we confirm that your mother’s fit isn’t going to annoy the druids into sending back Morrell—”

“I didn’t just _leave_ , Cora’s there, she still owes me for the bullshit with Lahey last week—”

“—and work the idyllic Washington vacation Argent’s going to want out of you into our busy schedules of madness and mayhem—”

Derek stumbles into something that rattles loudly, and then, when a passing orderly glares at him, pops the collar of his coat and macho-strolls his way behind Peter. “She’s going to deserve one after this. Her and Scott, running interference with her mom on top of the shit Scott’s dad is giving him because _Stiles’_ dad can’t just hand him an easy cover story—”

“—and dig out Stiles from wherever he’s gone to ground now, since you’ve given him the perfect—”

“Oh, hey!” Stiles says, looking up from the table nearest the door, half a calzone in his hand and the other half crammed into his mouth.

“—and he’s right there!” Derek says, jaw out at a pugnacious angle as he gratuitously points.

Peter lets him have that one, which should put paid to any nonsense that Peter lacks empathy.

“…so, you coming or going?” Stiles says after a couple seconds have passed. Then chokes himself, and drops the sandwich to grab for his soda, which he almost knocks off his tray in his hurry. He winces his way through a thank-you as Peter steadies it, takes a good long slurp, and then looks over Peter’s shoulder. “Hey, Derek, you know just standing there doesn’t keep anybody from seeing us, right? I mean, you have that shall-not-pass shoulder thing down, I’m not knocking that, but it’s still not a wall. Or a door. Like the one you’re standing by.”

“So if somebody saw Peter speed-wolfing his way across the room just now, I’ll punch them and check them in for a psychiatric hold,” Derek says, rolling his eyes and reaching for the door. He gives it a casual tug, then skids out of his attempt to saunter away when the door doesn’t budge. Glowering, he twists back around and stares at the door. “By the way, if you could not make Peter crazier than he already is, I’d really appreciate it. Scott’s dad already got one deputy to annoy Scott today, and I caught another one trying to interrogate Allison’s yoga instructor.”

“Uh, latch?” Stiles says. He waves his fingers to get Derek’s attention, then curls them and makes a sharp up-and-down gesture. Then knees Peter under the table. “Oh, my God, crude.”

Peter shrugs and takes the opportunity to twist his foot around Stiles’ ankle, pinning their calves together. He also samples the fries on Stiles’ tray: slightly better than expected, since they’re at least half crispy, even if they still taste more of freezer than actual potato. “You thought of it first, Stiles.”

“Like you weren’t about to mistake that for an invite to semi-public sex in yet another place you got knocked out at. I could say something about territorial marking and reclaiming your trauma, but I won’t,” Stiles snorts. He sips some more soda, then lifts his hand again as Derek, who’d finally figured out the bolts that had been holding the door open, turns a second time to leave. “Uh, Derek?”

That particular tone of Stiles makes anyone with half an inkling and a whole sense of preservation freeze. Derek goes a little beyond that, and scoots inside the closing doors so fast that Peter smells a little acrid heat rising from the linoleum.

“I _knew_ Scott’s dad was going to fuck us over,” Derek hisses, digging out his phone.

“What? Oh, hey, whoa, let’s not murder someone without a full and thoroughly vetted justification here. I mean, yeah, he’s the pits, but also, he’s still Scott’s dad, and killing him really isn’t going to help Scott’s hero complex. Also, he still owes Melissa alimony,” Stiles says, putting down his soda. “Just maybe pay attention when Melissa brings somebody home next, okay?”

Derek is perfectly still, except for his claws, which creep over his phone and then creep back out of sight, and his nostrils, which flare as he breathes in slowly. Then he straightens up. “Okay, so kill her date?”

“What, _no_ , we were trying to _reduce_ the homicide rate around here,” Stiles says. He stares back at Derek, then shoves his tray forward so he can get his elbows up on the table and put his head in his hands. “Oh, my God. Why don’t they put this in the How to Be a Seer handbook, you’re gonna do a lot of anti-murder counseling…”

“Well, can you be more specific? I don’t see the point of knowing the future if you’re just going to let us fuck around, if you want me to stop something, just let me—” Derek starts ranting.

“Derek, _is_ Melissa currently seeing anyone?” Peter sighs. He waits till Derek looks at him, then curls his lip back to flash some fang. Then reaches over and starts rubbing his fingers along Stiles’ hairline. He’d try drawing on the migraine he knows is brewing, except that in about one in a hundred times, that sends Stiles into a fullblown vision and he doesn’t trust Derek’s door-blocking technique any more than Stiles does. “You don’t know? So perhaps we should start with a little investigating?”

His nephew drops his head and lowers his brows as if Talia’s ex and his father had been a paltry bulldog. Which _is_ an appealing explanation, come to think of it, and Peter makes a note to look into it later. But Derek’s not actually going to keep fighting this fight, and they both know it.

“Look, nothing bad’s gonna happen. I mean, at least, it’s not supernatural, anything that’s gonna happen is plain human,” Stiles says, wearily raising his head. He’s still rubbing at his face. “But just it might be a good idea to not drop the ball with her. I know we all kind of just think Melissa’s awesome, because she is, and she takes care of so much shit around here, but sometimes she takes a break. And sometimes, her break is an asshole, and even if nobody gets murdered, I think she deserves a better night out.”

“Okay,” Derek says slowly. “If you say—I’ll tell Scott. We’ll…watch.”

Stiles pulls his hands down just enough to eye Derek. “Don’t make it a voyeur thing, Derek. I know this goes against your entire upbringing, but Melissa will shoot you.”

“Yeah, I know, like she tasered Peter. Seven times.” And then Derek looks at Peter as if he expects this to be a dagger to Peter’s heart.

“Hardly _my_ part of his childhood, if he gets caught,” Peter mutters. “Five of those were Chris’ fault, one was because I was high on yellow wolfsbane, and the last one—”

“Was me, yeah, I remember.” Stiles grins at Peter. “Totally worth it, though.”

“So,” Derek says, and suddenly Peter realizes it’s been a rather long second in between that and Stiles’ comment. “This terrible thing that’s not going to happen now, because now _I_ know—”

Stiles heaves his head backwards into the sigh. His nape’s warm and velvety against Peter’s fingers, with the strong, regular push of his carotid pulse just flirting with their tips. “Look, for the record, I told Scott and Allison about it too, not every single thing I see is _your_ life ending miserably, Derek. They really could use a break. You know on top of Scott’s jerk dad, Chris and Victoria—”

Derek’s face shutters. “Yeah.”

Instead of calling him out on his ungratefulness, Stiles just shrugs and looks at Derek. And it does get through that attitude, Peter can tell from the minute movements Derek’s shoulders are making under his coat, but it’s still far kinder than he would have been.

“Okay, then,” Stiles says, as Derek abruptly backs out of the room, shutting the doors behind him. He looks down at his tray, then pulls his phone out. His eyes widen and he jitters a knee up against something metal under the table, then falls back with a pained expression. “Oh, shit, wow, I had no idea, I really—um, so, I know I pull out the ol’ lost track of time because of pressing research excuse a lot, but…”

When he glances over, Peter meets him with an open, expectant expression and non-closing body language. Peter’s even moved his leg back so that though he can still feel Stiles’ body warmth, he’s not actually pinning the man in place. 

“…you’re mad, aren’t you?” Stiles finishes weakly. His hand shoots out and starts toying with the fries.

“Oh, hardly mad, Stiles,” Peter says. He reaches over and dips a fry into the ketchup pile at the edge of the paper boat, then eats it with a smile. “I just thought I’d come by, since there’s nothing pressing in my afternoon.”

“So mad,” Stiles sighs. He glances down at the runes he’s unintentionally made out of the fries, then grimaces and hastily knocks them apart. Then he gets up and grabs his tray. “Well, okay, let’s show you what I have so far.”

One favorable rune, one unfavorable, and one whose meaning depended entirely on what rune had come before it. Unfortunately, Peter hadn’t been watching that closely.

Fortunately, he doesn’t believe in unalterable destinies. “Do tell,” he says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fortune-telling with runes actually uses stones or chips with the symbols scratched on them, rather than relying on the random placement of stick/stick-like things (that's more I Ching), but Stiles absently making runes with french fries was too fun of an image to pass up.


	8. Then

“Dad, it’s a date,” Stiles kept saying, along with how it was totally fine with him and John should just do what seemed okay and Claudia would want them to be happy, didn’t John remember how when Heather’s dad had died in that accident and her mom had been spotted dating four months after the funeral, Claudia had been so mad at all the people gossiping about it?

John did, and Claudia—the real woman, not the lost one at the end—had been that kind of person, and it still wasn’t a date. “I’m pretty sure that she still thinks I’m here to kill her,” John muttered.

He probably shouldn’t have agreed to take Stiles along. Melissa had offered to speak to the hospital and see if she could get Stiles some sort of day-pass to the on-site daycare, which, while well-meaning, had made Stiles’ eyes bulge so much that John just knew his son was about to blurt out something about all the stuff he’d totally survived just by himself and also, he had a whole chart of latchkey laws to show her. That wasn’t going to convince Melissa, who’d been asking John some deceptively friendly questions last night, that the remaining Stilinskis were a happy, healthy family.

“Well, you can talk her around, and hey, she already knows?” Stiles said. He bounced a little in his seat, then acted as if he was stretching to see something outside when John looked over.

Then again, John could have come up with something else for daytime Stiles-watch. He wasn’t worried so much about any physical danger to Stiles—it was a daytime meeting, in public, and Talia had already remembered about Stiles so it wasn’t like John was getting any advantages out of trying to hide Stiles away. But how Stiles was _so_ eager to make this into something it wasn’t, when the last time they’d talked about their social life issues was the fight over Stiles disabling the child-safe filter software…yeah, that was raising a few red flags.

“Let’s keep this low-key, Stiles. She doesn’t know us, and I don’t remember much about her either. I know she brought up the book club, but they did meet in one of the most popular coffeeshops in town. Anybody could’ve seen them, or listened in for a couple meetings,” John had to warn his son.

“Oh. Oh…good point.” Stiles deflated, his fingers slipping off the window to his lap. Not much, but enough to make John feel like a goddamn hypocrite for every time he’d chewed out Mieczyslaw for bringing Stiles up to adult speed. “Um, so what do you want me to keep an eye out for? Back-up? You think she’d bring just werewolves, or if her Emissary comes along, those are usually druids, right? So I can watch for—”

John winced. “Hey, hey, let’s not jump to conclusions. Low-key, remember? It’s not a real meet-up, it’s just…I’m going to talk to her, learn how much she really knows about your mom, and then we’ll go back so you and Scott can get to the movies to catch all the previews.”

“Dad, c’mon, I can miss a couple previews if it’s helping you out. Remember you’re always telling _me_ how important it is to do your recon,” Stiles said, a little ruffled.

“Funny, I didn’t realize you were listening to me when you used up all the mountain ash a month ago, after I specifically told you it was a tulpa of a were,” John snorted.

Stiles reared up in his seat, then reached over and smacked John’s arm, complaining for a solid two minutes about how he had totally listened and it’d all been part of a carefully-planned theory he had about deconstructing tulpas via the same belief power that created them, and never mind that it hadn’t worked. Which made John feel a little bit more convinced that this was maybe just them adjusting to not hopping around on John’s consulting work, and not actually a sign that the last few years had messed up something in Stiles’ head.

They turned into the coffeeshop’s parking lot and John could already see Talia sitting inside, near one of the windows. She spotted him almost at the same time and waved, then gestured that she would meet him up at the counter.

“Oh, I think I remember her,” Stiles said softly. He looked a little nervous, and didn’t say anything else till John had parked and come around to his side, even though he’d stopped letting John help him out of the car way before Claudia had died. “She came to school once, because her daughter had wrecked the art room or something like that. All the kids were talking about it, said the easel got _shredded_.”

“Cora,” John said, nodding, even though he was pulling that name out of the background research he’d done last night, rather than his own memory.

For all that they hadn’t been gone that long, as things went, their life in Beacon Hills seemed as if it’d happened—happened to someone else, almost. Things were familiar, but not comfortably; John kept finding his shoulders stiffening up on him as he and Stiles walked up to the door. He knew he’d been here but he didn’t feel like it.

“You want a hot chocolate?” John asked Stiles in an attempt to distract himself.

Stiles stopped in place and let John get a whole yard ahead of him before, huffing and crossing his arms over his chest, he hurried back up to John’s side. “ _Dad_.”

“Coffee is going to mess up your growth spurt, kid. You quoted those studies to me,” John said.

“Well, okay, but _hot chocolate_ , seriously. I mean, look at that photo,” Stiles said, scoffing and waving his hand at the menu posted above the counter. “A ton of whip so you get that up your nose and they can short you on the actual drink, and sprinkles, and who orders that? Five-year-olds?”

Just then, the guy ahead of them turned around, a carbon copy of the pictured cup in hand, and looked at Stiles as if he’d heard every single word and was going to start a back-alley fight over each of them. He was a head taller than Stiles and had the shoulders to look like he could carry through any fight he started.

He was also a teenager, and his hair had at least one bottle too much gel in it, and his leather jacket was trying too hard. John dropped a casual hand on Stiles’ shoulder and eyed the kid right back, which made him frown and cock his head. Which in turn made John pay more attention to him, since most teenage boys didn’t have the brain cells to be cautious.

“Hey, Mom, I think these are them,” said the teenager, still looking at John. He stuck the arm with the hot chocolate out to the side, handing it off to…

Talia, who accepted it with a sweet smile and a flash of fang so quick that if John hadn’t been looking specifically for it, he wouldn’t have spotted it. Then she deftly inserted herself between John and her son, who was busy looking baffled and offended in equal parts by her snarl. “John, so glad you could make it. And this is Stiles? Hello, I don’t think we ever were introduced, but your mother used to bring you up every single time somebody thought a child character couldn’t actually come up with some brilliant idea.”

That absolutely sounded like something Claudia would say, but it also was something that anybody with surface knowledge of Claudia could come up with too. In other words, it was the perfect hook for Stiles to jump at, only he…didn’t.

“Yeah, this is my son,” John ended up saying to keep away any awkward pause. He glanced at the teenager, who Talia introduced as Derek and who gave John an unsmiling nod, and then gave Stiles a push on the shoulder; hopefully his son could collect himself while putting in a drink order. “Thanks for meeting me. I know last night was kind of out of the blue—”

This time Talia’s smile was less playing to the nose-bleeders and a lot more like a normal person, even if it was sarcastic. “Well, I don’t usually plan on stalking people as part of my grocery run,” she said, with an acknowledging dip of her head. She took a small step away from the counter, with Derek shadowing her wake. “I hope you don’t mind that Derek came along. He’s giving me a ride since my car is having some problems. He’s got homework to do, or—I didn’t realize Stiles would have come along, or I would have brought Cora, my youngest, but Derek’s been watching his sister for years so if you’d like, he could—”

“You know she already knows, right?” Stiles whispered from right by John’s side. He hadn’t gone up to the counter, and when John grabbed his arm, it wasn’t because John was startled, but because he recognized what that tone of Stiles’ means. Distant, thready, almost indifferent except for how huge and dark Stiles’ eyes always got when he was having one of his moments. “You don’t have to trick her, she’s known since you took her to the factory, she’s fine with it, and if you do, it’s going to be really bad.”

Talia was still smiling but her eyes had snapped to Stiles’ face and they were not remotely friendly. But it was Derek who really forced John’s hand, with the way he startled and then tried to loom over Talia’s shoulder to glare at Stiles. “What the hell are you talking about? Have you been spying on us?”

“Derek, _language_ ,” Talia hissed, whirling and hooking her arm through her son’s before he’d even finished.

“Okay, never mind, I—there’s that ice cream shop next door,” John said at the same time, pulling Stiles back behind him and then pushing him away from the Hales. “You still have the twenty I gave you, right? You want to get something while I call Miec—shit, I mean Melissa to come pick—”

Stiles pulled sharply away from him and for the second John’s fingers weren’t touching his son, worry tightened up John’s throat. Coming here had been a terrible idea. Sure, mercenary work wasn’t the way either, but there had to be something else, and Mieczyslaw wasn’t even around to goddamn back John up while revealing all the bullshit he’d not gotten around to teaching John yet, and—Stiles twisted around and grabbed John’s hand. Held it, but didn’t come back.

“Dad,” he said urgently. He started to say more, but then just tugged hard at John, while looking as if his eyes were going to burst out of his head. “Dad, they gotta know. It’s _bad_.”

“Okay, just—” John glanced over at the counter.

The two baristas were occupied with one of the espresso machines. The rest of the place wasn’t that full, and so far they weren’t attracting a ton of attention, but—Talia moved into his line of vision. “There’s an adorable patio in the back, if you’d like some fresh air,” she chirped, eyes boring into John’s while she kept a hard grip on Derek’s arm. “Really tiny, but it should just about fit us.”

And nobody else. And hell if John could remember whether it had one exit or whether they’d be sitting ducks, and…Stiles was starting to go pale. Shit.

“Sounds good,” John said loudly. He stepped up and got Stiles by the shoulder, and moved them enough towards the back that Talia started moving. Then he detoured them left to where a line of serve-yourself thermos were set up. “Just gonna grab myself something, then I’ll be out. Why don’t you grab it for us?”

Talia’s eyes narrowed. But when Derek started to object, she gave him a meaningful look that shut him up. “Take your time,” she said.

“She totally doesn’t mean that,” Stiles said as John hastily paid for the coffee. He was rubbing at his temple, his one visible eye squinting. His shoulders were dropped. “Sorry, Dad. I just need to.”

“Yeah, I know. It’s fine, just make sure you grab the seat by the door,” John muttered. “And take your ibuprofen.”

Small mercy that at least this part of Stiles’ family heritage hadn’t manifested till he was old enough for adult dosages. John slipped Stiles an extra couple of pills, in case the vision was a lead-in to a migraine, and then herded them to the back patio.

It was cute. And small. And walled in on three sides, though there were windows to the surrounding shops. The glass looked thick enough that John would probably have to shoot it in order to break in.

“I’m certainly not going to be ambushing anybody in these heels, John,” Talia said dryly. When John twitched, she helpfully scooted a chair around so that he could sit between her and Stiles. “That said, I do think we need to talk about what exactly your son meant.”

“Yeah, how the hell does he know about Paige?” Derek hissed. “Are you hunting her?”

“Who?” John and Stiles both said.

“Paige? Is that the girl from band that complained about you interrupting her practice?” Talia said.

Derek closed his mouth, with the kind of oh-shit expression only a teenage boy who’d been very proud of himself for getting away with something could produce. He stuffed his hands in his coat pockets while his mother looked him over, her expression sliding from bemused to sharp.

“She already knows you’re weird, it doesn’t bug her. I mean, I don’t think she knows specifically _werewolf_ but way to hide the fact that you can smell blood in microliter quantities, and anyway, if you really like her, you’re not gonna _completely_ change her life without her full and informed consent because the bite is _kind_ of a bigger deal than getting matching tattoos,” Stiles suddenly rattled off. He’d stopped rubbing at his head, but his face was still tightly pinched and his eyes were squeezed shut.

“ _What_ ,” Talia said, slewing around to fully face Derek.

“What—I—I just don’t know—Peter said if I didn’t want to lose her, because everybody’s afraid of—” Derek stammered, eyes wide. He backed up a step, then shook himself and pointed at Stiles. “And how does he know? He’s spying on me too! Mom, if he knows about Paige, then we gotta warn—”

“She’s not even compatible. It’s gonna end really badly. And there’s a tree that wants to eat my head and _Dad_ ,” Stiles said. He took a shaky step to the right, flailing for the chair, and then missed it as he pitched over to grab at his face.

John had been half-watching for it and got Stiles around the waist; Stiles hadn’t actually been falling over, just bending, but he missed hitting his head against the metal chair leg by about an inch. Then a sudden burning sensation on John’s hand and wrist made him swear, and he had dragged them halfway to the door before a white blob caught his eye and he looked up and saw the coffee cup he’d dropped.

“Go to hell, kid, the last thing my son’s got time for is his head exploding over your high school crush,” John snapped. He shook off as much coffee as he could, then shifted his grip on Stiles so that he could maneuver Stiles into sitting on one of the chairs. “Do you need to throw up?”

“Um, no, I don’t…just give me…” Stiles muttered between pants.

“What’s wrong with him?” Derek asked. “What tree? We don’t have head-eating trees.”

“Derek, go in and get a glass of water for him,” Talia said. She didn’t move towards John and Stiles, but she did squat a little as if trying to see Stiles’ face. “I don’t think they’re spying on us, and get that water, and some napkins, and you come _right_ back here because I want to know exactly what’s going on with you and Paige.”

From the clenched fists, Derek still wanted to pick a fight, but he scuffed a little towards the door.

“ _And_ Peter,” Talia added, sighing through an eye-roll. “Am I clear?”

At that point, Stiles started to gag, so John lost track of the Hales’ argument since he was busy trying to keep Stiles in the chair. Stiles being Stiles, his kid kept trying to insist it was almost over and not to worry about him, worry about the tree, till finally John squished himself into the chair so Stiles would be pinned in place and his hands would be freed up to thump Stiles on the back.

“To hell with the tree, I can deal with it later. Just throw up if you have to, you’ll feel better,” John found himself saying. Sounding angry, which made him just angrier—not at Stiles, but at this whole clusterfuck situation and goddamn it, but couldn’t somebody on Claudia’s side have given him more of a heads-up? “I’ll deal with that too.”

“ _Dad_ ,” Stiles coughed.

“It’s all right, I once bashed in an omega’s head back here and we managed to talk them into thinking the blood was spilled hibiscus tea,” Talia said. She was still standing well back, when John looked up, but he didn’t appreciate the flippant tone. Which she knew, said her raised brows and cool stare. “He’s having a vision or something like that, isn’t he? And don’t let go of him, I can see your gun and I already am assuming you know how to use it. I’m just asking, because if he is, throwing up _will_ make him feel better.”

Stiles coughed again, then butted his head into John’s shoulder. “How would she know,” he mumbled, half-resentful, half-embarrassed.

“You don’t raise three children as a female alpha and not pick up a few things about when it’s best to just get it all out and over with,” Talia sighed.

She was still a little light-hearted about all of this for John’s taste. “Yeah, so that’s what’s going on with your kid there? We getting it all out so he can stop giving my kid migraines?”

Talia didn’t really move, but something about her hardened. “Well, is there a reason why you’re focused on my family?” she asked. “I thought you were just here because I happened to know your wife. Which you said you didn’t remember.”

“Because he didn’t!” Stiles said, talking over John. He pushed his head up, squirming past John’s shoulder when John tried to block him. “He didn’t. He didn’t even want—we’re only here ‘cause I asked, and I didn’t ask because of your family—I didn’t even _know_ you were in town or anything, I just—I can’t help what I see, it doesn’t work like that, and all I’m just trying to do is tell you your son’s gonna get that girl killed and it’ll make a really evil-looking tree happy and it’s blurry from there but it feels _bad_ and I’m sorry if that doesn’t make sense, but that’s what I have and I’m just telling you so you can do something!”

“And you’ve told her, so we can go now,” John finally got in. He still had hold of Stiles’ arm, and used it to steer his son behind him as he got them both out of the chair. “There’s no deal here, I don’t owe you anything, you don’t owe me, and if your Emissary tries to pull something behind my back, you’ll be hearing from me. Otherwise we can both walk from this. Okay?”

She was going to object, John could read it in Talia’s face. But then she changed her mind—about speaking, anyway. The narrow-eyed way she looked after them wasn’t that reassuring.

Still, she was letting them go, and even if it was just some tactical maneuver, John was going to take it. He’d figure out countermoves later—“Jesus!” he spat out, yanking Stiles back just before he would’ve run into Derek. “What the hell?”

“What, does he not need the water now?” Derek said, scowling and hopping back.

“Are you trying to get people angry enough to kill you?” John said.

“ _Excuse_ me,” Talia said, swinging wide in one long, easy stride so she and Derek were on the same side.

Shit. John wasn’t going to get to his gun before either of them jumped, he knew that much about werewolf reflexes. He backed up to get into more open space and shook his free hand so that his watch rotated around and he could press the protective symbols engraved on its—

And then all three of them froze as Stiles threw up all over the patio. “Sorry,” he muttered, swaying into John’s side. Then he hurriedly pushed off again, upchucking a second time. He grabbed onto his knee and steadied, head hanging down, and then looked up just as John reached for him. “Did you break up with her?”

“What? No, I just—I texted her not to meet me today! Because I don’t know what you’re doing, but I love her and I’m not going to get her anywhere near this till I’m sure she’ll be okay,” Derek snapped. “Why would you say that?”

“Because…because now there’s this blonde lady, and you’re moping and she is really, _really_ not into you so much as into killing you?” Stiles said. He bobbed a little, then gingerly straightened up. “And your mom. And a bunch of other people. But the evil tree’s gone, maybe? You sure you didn’t break up with her? Like did you tell her you can’t meet or did you say you didn’t want to see her?”

Derek stared disbelievingly at Stiles. Then he shoved the cup of water and napkins he’d gotten at his mother and took off for the far corner of the postage-sized patio, where he promptly started texting furiously on his phone.

John looked at him, then at Talia, who’d taken one step towards Derek as he’d passed her and then caught herself. She was still looking at her son, and her face—it didn’t exactly make John’s feelings towards her do a one-eighty, but he did recognize that expression. The one where you were watching your kid probably fuck up but it might be a little your fault too, you weren’t sure yet, and also they might just be too old now for you to fix it for them.

“Derek,” Talia called after him. Her tone rang a little hollow.

“Not now, Mom, I—I’ll tell you about Paige, okay, but right now she’s—I have to—” Derek twisted around and slapped his phone to his ear.

Talia jerked back a little, then wrapped one arm around herself. She looked at the walls around them and John could track her decision-making, thinking Derek had run away from the door, so he couldn’t leave, so she was going to turn back and then she caught John at it. He stiffened, then pressed his lips together and lifted his hand towards Stiles.

“Do you want a napkin?” Talia asked suddenly. It wasn’t a peace offering, exactly. More like another move in a negotiation.

Stiles looked down at himself and flushed up; he’d gotten splashes on his shoes. His face started to screw up, because he was a boy and boys sometimes valued the two-week-old hot sneakers over the immediate danger, and then he jerked to his senses and shuffled over towards John.

“Well…” Talia leaned forward as far as she could, then dropped the napkins on the table, which was between them. She paused, then leaned forward again and put the water down too. Then she stood back, her arm dropping to sling about her waist rather than under her breasts, and she looked from Stiles to John. “Look, this wasn’t really what I was thinking we’d do.”

“Yeah, agreed,” John said.

They stared at each other for a couple seconds. Stiles made an odd noise, then ducked his head into his hand and roughly cleared his throat when John looked at him. He was thirsty; he always said his throat felt like somebody’d squirted chili oil down it after one of the vomit episodes.

“I would like to talk about whatever your son might have seen about my family. Not to ask you to intervene, just to know for myself,” Talia went on. She paused and studied John, then took a step away from the table with the water and the napkins. “And you wanted to talk about Claudia, and I did bring some photos, and also I thought if you wanted, I could send you an invite to the book club’s Facebook group. She posted a lot there—but I couldn’t find either of you when I looked.”

“Oh, yeah, you shouldn’t, we got that all scrubbed,” Stiles said proudly, and then clammed up and gave John a sheepish look.

Keeping their off-the-grid status a secret wasn’t really priority right now, John tried to say with a nod to his son. It seemed to work, since Stiles stopped looking sheepish and went back to looking a little woozy, and…they weren’t walking. They hadn’t yet, and…they weren’t going to. John let that sit with him for a second, just in case his common sense wanted to kick in, and then sighed. “Maybe this wasn’t the best place.”

“I’d invite you to dinner at my house, but I’m feeling a little insecure at the moment. I think you get that,” Talia said, still measuring John up. “Hmm. Well, I’m willing to come to yours. Just me, no family—though I will tell them where I’m going.”

“Fair enough,” John said. “Let’s do that.”

They settled on a day and time, and then Talia went back over to her son, who was cradling his phone in both hands and looking like he didn’t know whether to crush it or sing sad love songs to it. Still, it wasn’t till John and Stiles were back in their car that John finally relaxed.

“Hey, Dad?” Stiles said. “So…how are we getting Scott and his mom out of the house that night?”

Oh. Shit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Supernatural_ probably has taught everybody by now, but a tulpa is a type of being that's literally thought into existence. So if you play out the logic, a tulpa of a TW-canon werewolf wouldn't necessarily be restrained by the same things as a canonical werewolf, if the people thinking it into being didn't know what could affect a canonical werewolf.
> 
> Anyone who's been reading me for more than one story knows I like my Talia to be a considerably more involved mother than is depicted on the show. There's still no way around seeing what happened with Paige as a parental ball getting dropped somewhere along the line, but I think Talia knowing at least some of it but misjudging when to intervene is a lot more plausible than she didn't know at all.


	9. Now

“So time skips are a _symptom_ , but they’re obviously not the cause because none of these people who are losing time are doing anything remotely magical. They’re jogging, or they’re walking the dog, or they were illegally hunting—and yes, I did check that last one for undercover sacrifices but they didn’t even know how to take off antlers properly, there’s no way they’re secret warlocks with that kind of shoddy knifework,” Stiles says as he and Peter walk out of the cafeteria and through the halls and back into the parking lot. He zips through window after window on his phone, going through diagrams and emails and custom Google maps so fast that Peter’s werewolf eyesight can barely keep up. “Dad was getting frustrated because he couldn’t find the pattern, so I—”

“It’s not stationary, is it? Not something like a Nemeton,” Peter says.

Stiles beams at him. “Nope, that was totally the key. Moving localized temporary time warp, _singular_ , not multiple warps opening up in different places so clearly we’re talking about a mobile sentient being. Still narrowing it down, but my money’s on something in the knocker family.”

“You’ve ruled out vampiric mesmerism?” Peter asks.

“No bites,” Stiles says, tapping the side of his neck, and then he frowns at Peter. “You okay? You seem distracted.”

Because that was a very off-target guess for Peter, given the obvious response. He considers Stiles’ question, then sighs and gives himself a shake. “Well, I suppose I’m still trying to figure out why your father thinks you’re investigating a lost spirit at the old factory.”

Part of him hates to do it. Stiles is watching him with so much genuine concern that when Peter says that, the other man not only misses his step, but misses it so badly that Peter has to haul him back by the elbow to keep his skull from introducing itself to an undeserving door handle. And even though that was the entire point of the ploy, Peter still regrets the exact second that Stiles stops looking worried about _him_ , rather than what he’s about to do. So few people do.

“Oh, he said that?” Stiles says, his voice just shy of yelp octave. He stumbles a few more feet, then steadies enough to pull away from Peter and give the back of his heed a sheepish rub. “Well, um, he…might not _know_ that I’m helping him out?”

“This is what John’s been working on?” Peter says.

Stiles nods a touch too eagerly. “Yeah, and I had some time on my hands and he’s been getting frustrated so I thought I’d just help out. So far everybody’s come back but they’re losing more and more time, so we’re trying to narrow it down.”

“Mmm-hmm, true, if it is from the knocker type, we’re only a few days away from some sort of natural catastrophe,” Peter says.

“Yeah, that’s what the lore says,” Stiles agrees. Then hesitates. He looks over Peter again, his hand dropping to squeeze at the back of his neck. “You’re not buying this, are you?”

“Oh, I think it’s a little premature to talk of buying and selling, Stiles,” Peter says. “Not when we haven’t even priced out the costs.”

Stiles bites his lip and hunches his shoulders a little. They’re coming up on Peter’s car, but with each step, Stiles moves slower and slower. And then he finally caves and turns towards Peter. “Costs of what it’s going to take to get you to stop being mad?”

“I’m not mad at you,” Peter says.

“Not what your tone says,” Stiles says.

“Well, if—” Peter makes himself break off and gives the other man a narrow-eyed look. “You know that’s not going to work either. I’m not Derek.”

“Okay, well, I ate lunch almost an hour later than I usually do and you know what that does to my blood sugar,” Stiles says, with a forced smile. He knows _that’s_ not going to work either, that’s why his eyes slide past Peter’s left shoulder. “I wasn’t trying to ditch you on purpose. It wasn’t like me and Scott ran off to go handle it without telling anyone.”

It’s on the tip of Peter’s tongue to point out that John had also said Stiles was out with Allison, not Scott, but he holds that back. And then ultimately swallows it. He’s already made his point, and with Stiles letting one point reign too long just meant the man had time to come up with a workaround. “All right. I just wanted to know.”

Then Peter texts Derek, who texts back almost immediately that Scott and Allison were wrapping up with the interviews, but Victoria’s glaring at people so now it’s dragging. If Derek’s that bored, there probably isn’t imminent physical danger. Peter wasn’t getting that sense from John, but then, he’s not entirely trusting that John even knows what’s going on.

“There was a ghost at the old factory,” Stiles offers up. He shuffles over and peeks at Peter’s phone just as Peter turns on the screensaver and puts it back in his pocket. Annoyance flickers briefly over his face before he remembers this would be a bad time to call Peter on being a hypocrite. “This bunch of morons did a little Ouija, called it up. No big deal, took five minutes to take care of. It wasn’t even really an exorcism so much as explaining to the poor kid what’d happened to his favorite hunting patch.”

“Well, at least that was straightforward.” Peter takes his keys out and remotely unlocks his car, then has one hand on the door when his phone vibrates. He sighs and takes it out, and texts Derek to just sneak past Victoria.

Stiles leans over again, then twitches sharply as Peter clicks the side-button. Then he stands back and sighs. “Still mad?”

“No,” Peter says.

“Not at me. I mean at whoever you think is fucking with me, so now you’re gonna interrogate everyone to figure out who it is and then kill them,” Stiles says.

Peter rolls his eyes. “Why does _everyone_ think the only thing I ever do is kill people?”

“Well, because…you do it a lot? And a lot of them are people who fucked with me?” Stiles says.

“Speaks the man who spent his last two consecutive Christmases hunting down Dread Doctors with his father,” Peter says. At this point, he can almost say that name without feeling the muscles between his shoulder blades pull tight, or smelling the phantom anesthetic.

Stiles snorts. “They were kind of terrorizing _everybody_ , you know. Not just you and your family.”

“Of course. And you bottle up every evil sorcerer in Coke and talk a priest into blessing a roll of Mentos just for the sheer joy of bottle-rocketing them into the afterlife,” Peter says.

“Okay, come on, there was a _little_ sheer joy in coming up with that. I mean, who knew we’d get the multi-colored foam too?” Stiles says, grinning and leaning in again. 

Only this time, he’s trying to get close to Peter rather than Peter’s phone, and even if things aren’t settled, Peter…can’t help taking in the warmth and smell and press of the man. Can’t help smiling at it. They do understand each other so well on so many things.

And yet—Stiles recollects himself sooner than Peter does, because he’s always had that inability to be irresponsible, not when it comes to the things he deems important. “Look,” he says quietly, his gaze dropping to Peter’s chin. “It’s not gonna kill anybody, but I just—I gotta work this one little thing out, okay?”

And Peter would resent him for the fact that his list of important things serially omits items such as his own mental well-being and the fact that Peter is attached to his mind as it is, and is not, thank you, interested one bit in dimming its ridiculous, improbable, near-insane brilliance for garden-variety psychosis. He would, except that then Stiles wouldn’t tell him _anything_.

“All right, but do let me know if anything could use a touch of homicide,” Peter finally says.

They both know that the time warps aren’t the topic of discussion, not really, but Stiles looks so relieved that Peter keeps his mouth shut. “I really did just get caught up—I wasn’t planning on missing lunch,” Stiles says. “Sorry. Really. This shouldn’t get in the way of anything and make us have to reschedule our stuff, I’ll double up on phone alarms—”

Peter kisses him. Stiles fumbles on for a few muffled words, then swings his arm around and hooks it over Peter’s shoulder for leverage, increasing his scant height advantage to tip Peter back against the car. Then he crowds in, hands going unerringly under Peter’s sweater for the sensitive spots of Peter’s abdomen while Peter’s still trying to bat down his flannel shirt to figure out how many damned layers the man has on today.

“Oh, my God,” Stiles mutters, mouthing Peter’s jawline. “One. One, I didn’t even tuck anything in—”

“Because tucking in a curtain disarms it,” Peter mutters back.

Stiles laughs, pressing his lips against Peter so that they dance with the sound of it, flutter teasingly across Peter’s cheek, and Peter huffs and just curls his fingers tightly around the man’s waist, as close to skin as they can go. The strength of his grip always makes Stiles hitch once, at the beginning—

“Ahem,” coughs Scott McCall from across the lot.

“One sec,” Stiles says around Peter’s cheekbone. His fingernails scratch at Peter’s belly, just hard enough to set the skin to prickling, and then he sighs and pushes back. And gives Peter a half-hearted little shrug when Peter looks at him. “I’m sure it’s important.”

Peter raises his brows. Stiles snorts and turns a shoulder to him, then raises one arm to wave Scott over. He doesn’t block Peter from stepping up and nuzzling the back of his neck, but a second later, he shuffles forward enough to break the contact.

“Sorry,” Scott coughs again, jogging over to them. “But just wanted to let you know, Allison and her mom are heading over to the preserve. Um, your dad said they’re just going to have somebody buy some deli platters and take it out to the birdwatching lodge.”

“Is that for Talia?” Stiles sighs, before he catches himself. He gives Peter a look that’s a little furtive, and it has nothing to do with stepping lightly around any Hale family issues. “I mean, I thought Dad wasn’t going out there again.”

“He was packing a knife set when I saw him earlier,” Peter says. When Stiles jerks around, Peter feels a little twist in his gut. It’s not guilt; he doesn’t feel _guilty_ about knocking yet another brick from the shoddy wall Stiles has been trying to build up around the truth. “Cathbad dagger included.”

Stiles presses his lips tightly together. He smells genuinely surprised under his annoyance. “He said that,” he starts, and then cuts himself off and pulls out his phone. “Ugh, Dad, honestly? Okay, give me a sec, I’m going to call Jordan and figure out what Dad’s up to.”

“Oh, you might want to go back in and catch Derek in that case,” Scott says, hooking a thumb over his shoulder. “He was already calling Jordan to make him make Isaac or Ethan get the platters, because Derek was saying Talia wanted something and wasn’t going to grab dinner with the rest of the pack.”

That gets Peter’s attention, and he pulls his phone out to text Derek to not get anything out of the family library or any of Peter’s stashes without checking in with Peter first. Derek texts back immediately, denying that he was doing anything, and Peter looks up with a frown. By then, Stiles has almost made it to the doors of Eichen House, while Scott has drifted over to stand by Peter.

“Hey, so how bad is this argument that his dad and Talia have going, do you know?” Scott asks Peter. “Because Mom was asking—”

Eichen House may have learned to hide its nature under Scandi-cheerful décor, but it’s still a place that keeps its secrets well. So as soon as the sound-absorbent glass closes behind Stiles, Peter pivots on his heel and strides right up to Scott.

“Why is Stiles lying to me?” he says.

True alpha or not, Scott McCall couldn’t keep a secret if it had werewolf blood on its hands, long brown hair, and Argent for a last name. “Did he say he was lying to you?” he immediately replies, eyes wide, heartbeat jackrabbiting. “He didn’t say anything to me.”

“Why would he tell me he’s lying to me?” Peter sighs.

“I don’t know. No, I really don’t.” Scott puts his hand up as if he’s going to push Peter away, then looks desperately over Peter’s shoulder. “You know, maybe you misunderstood each other. I bet if you just get Stiles out here and—”

“I literally just had this conversation with him and all I learned was that whatever is going on, it’s so complicated that he couldn’t even fully brief his father on it. So now _John’s_ lying to me to cover for him. Lying badly,” Peter says. He steps to the side, blocking any run for the building, and stares at Scott for a good three seconds. Then deliberately lets his shoulders drop and his posture soften. “I’m just worried, Scott. You know how Stiles gets when he thinks someone else might get hurt, and then he gets himself hurt, badly, when if he’d just let us help…”

On the other hand, the useful thing about McCall is that Peter barely has to try in order to manipulate him. Peter glances over at the building, letting McCall’s guilt complex do the rest of the lifting for him, and when he looks back at the other man, Scott’s already chewing on his lip.

“I don’t really know. Honestly. He’s not really telling me what it is either, I just know—yeah, I know, something’s wrong,” Scott says. Slow and reluctant for all of three words before his shoulders start to straighten and his scent to swell with gratitude for Peter taking the secret-keeping off of him. “But look, if it helps, I am pretty sure that he’s not going to—we’re not going to end up in a fight or anything that means we have to talk to my dad. At least not in the next couple days. His dad’s almost got all of the actual exorcism stuff wrapped up.”

“Exorcism?” Peter says sharply. Then forces himself to tone that down; Scott might be wide-open to sympathy ploys but he _was_ capable of fighting back, if properly alerted to the need for it. “I was under the impression the investigation had just gotten started. Stiles was saying we haven’t even figured out what type of demon or spirit it is.”

Scott stares at Peter. Then blinks and shakes himself back into minimal sentience. “Oh, you didn’t even…but Stiles’ dad has been working on this for three weeks! I mean, so Stiles and I just found out about it a couple days ago, but…”

Not talking to Talia, and Talia hunting something in the preserve. Of course. Peter barely manages to resist the urge to punch his head into his hand, because Stilinskis. “So John’s been keeping this from everyone?”

“Um, well…” McCall is inhumanly resistant to blaming anyone, even if they were literally just standing over a broken body speechifying about their evil plan, but even he can’t help looking tired. “I think he just thought since you can’t actually kill them, just exorcise them, it would keep down on the fighting if he didn’t.”

“Them being?” Peter prompts.

“Oh! Ghost Riders,” Scott says. He watches Peter for a second, then fumbles out his phone. “So they’re not really ghosts, they’re more like demons because they never were of human origin even though they look like us, um, let me check—Stiles wrote me a summary—”

Peter takes the phone from Scott’s hand, scrolls down so he can see the subject line on the email it’s showing, and then forwards it to himself. Then he hands back the phone. “Is this why your mother was at the office to speak to John?”

“Mom was over?” Scott says, looking slightly panicky. He takes a step towards the building, then frowns as Peter moves in his way. For a moment his scent spikes with aggression—but then he just sighs. “Yeah, maybe. These things grab people and kind of…cause amnesia, not just in the people they take but also in everybody else, so it’s like they don’t exist. And even if the people get away and get back, the amnesia doesn’t lift right away. In the people who weren’t taken, that is. So Mom’s been seeing a lot of weird psych check-ins, and that’s actually how Stiles found out, I think.”

“Because Melissa put two and two together, but John’s been out of reach, which I presume is how people have been escaping the Ghost Riders…” Peter pauses to see if Scott nods, which he does “…so she asked Stiles instead.”

Scott nods again. “Yeah. I wasn’t with Stiles for any of that, he just texted me after he talked to his dad—”

“When was that?” Peter asks, and this time he doesn’t stop himself from sounding harsh. Though it isn’t at Scott—not that the man wouldn’t deserve it for other reasons, but he’s not the one who’s been living with Stiles for the past…Peter still doesn’t know how long this has been going on. He doesn’t know, and he hadn’t picked up even a whisper of a clue from Stiles until today.

He didn’t notice. 

He…is not going to sort through how he feels about that right now. Too many people would want to come after him if he killed McCall, and his feelings aside—Peter grits his teeth—he needs Stiles to talk to him if he’s going to get to the bottom of this and Stiles won’t do that over McCall’s dead body. And also, it won’t make him feel better. Not really.

This whole time Scott’s been eyeing him, more wary than pitying, though there’s still enough of the latter to test Peter’s preference for self-awareness over short-term gratification. “I don’t think he’s doing this to mess with you, or anything like that,” Scott finally says. “He really cares about you, you know that, right?”

“Yes,” Peter says flatly. “Answer my question, Scott. Or I’m going to ask Derek.”

Scott stiffens. His eyes darken with a hint of red. “I know you’re not happy, but you don’t need to—Derek’s been completely out of the loop anyway, he’s been too busy worrying about his mom and how she’s fighting with—anyway, Stiles went to go talk to his dad yesterday, and it sounded like they worked it all out.”

“Worked it out how,” Peter says, still pressing the words against his teeth before he spits them out.

“I don’t know, he didn’t tell me and I haven’t seen his dad, I just—I know they’re good,” Scott says, and for the first time, a hint of frustration enters his voice. He reaches up and absently pulls at his hair. “Stiles did say the Ghost Riders are almost gone, his dad just had to do one more thing to make sure they’d all been chased off. All we’ve been doing is just talking to people to try and figure out what brought them here in the first place. We came here in case—”

“Checking sensitives for any prophetic dreams, that sort of thing, yes. That makes sense,” Peter says. He moves back and listens to Scott’s heartbeat slow, waits for the man to blow out his breath in relief. “Of course, what _doesn’t_ make sense is why Stiles would skip our lunch for something like that.”

He’d also turned to face the building. Enough to give McCall a false sense of security, not enough that he couldn’t keep tabs on the man’s expression and body language. McCall flinches sharply, then twists and looks at the building as if he’s worried someone is going to burst out of it and call him on breaking confidences. From the whole twenty yards of intervening space, despite their werewolf senses. His mannerisms and way of thinking remain stubbornly normal; given what Peter knows the man’s seen and done, that seems beyond suicidal idiocy and downright supernatural in and of itself.

“I don’t know why he’s upset,” Scott says, dropping his voice. He pushes his hands into his pockets, then takes them out. Then gives Peter almost the same look as he’d just given Eichen House. “Yeah, he—he is. But I don’t know why, but it’s not…it’s not like he’s running _away_. Not that kind, and whatever’s eating him, at least he’s working on it here, even if he’s not telling anybody, and I just…I just think it’s better to try and let him work through it. At least for now. I’m sorry we didn’t think to let you know, either. It’s not like we don’t all know about Thursday lunch.”

Peter isn’t sure what bothers him more, the presumption in Scott’s apology, or the fact that the way Scott had sounded right before giving that, the thread of baffled resignation in the man’s voice—that that had resonated enough to make Peter curl his hands to hide his claws against his legs. “I see.” He tries a careful breath before he goes on. “That is…useful to know. Thank you.”

Scott whips his head around, back to the blank staring.

“So you’ve been with him all day?” Peter adds, keeping his tone as pleasant as possible.

“I…no. Allison has—she got a call from her dad about doing interviews, and when she got here, Stiles was already working on it,” Scott says. He fidgets, then looks at the building again. “He’s kind of…”

“Yes, you should check on that,” Peter says. He takes his phone out and frowns at it. Then clears his throat as Scott’s taking a second step away. “Talia’s calling me—she needs a ride from the preserve. I have to deal with—can you let Stiles know, and get him home? I think Stiles and I will be fine about lunch, so now I have to deal with _that_ nonsense.”

“Yes, definitely,” Scott says, flapping a hand back as he jogs towards the entrance.

He’s already focused on his self-appointed task—retrieving Stiles—and since Peter approves of that, Peter doesn’t interfere. On the contrary, Peter gets into his car and removes himself from a situation that, whether he likes it or not, seems to be under control. He’s better used elsewhere. Such as finding Chris Argent.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 'Knocker' as in tommyknockers and similar magical beings who, among other things, allegedly get people lost in places like caves. 
> 
> Trapping evil spirits in bottles is a time-honored tactic with a line you can draw from King Solomon and the djinns through witch-bottles in English folklore. As for [Mentos in Coke](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diet_Coke_and_Mentos_eruption), if you don't already know this one, go hit up your local drugstore already.


	10. Then

John spent a couple hours debating Stiles on the best excuse to use for Melissa, and then a couple more debating with himself. And then he thought about the kind of person Melissa was, and why he liked her, aside from her son being Stiles’ best friend, and gave up and just caught her after dinner that night, when the boys were in the other room, and told her.

“Let me get this right,” she said slowly. “You’re going to pay for me to take Scott and Stiles out to the movies so you can use my house to have a sit-down with Talia Hale.”

“Yeah,” John said.

Melissa pursed her lips a couple times. Her eyes had narrowed as soon as he’d mentioned Talia and they weren’t opening up any. “Also, you need me to wait till you text me to bring them back, because you’re not sure how this is going to go, and I am not supposed to worry about that _at all_.”

“I don’t think it’s going to get physical, if that’s what you mean,” John said, suppressing a grimace. “I just don’t want Stiles to walk in on—I don’t know what she has to say about Claudia, and he’s still…he had a hard time sometimes, hearing about her. So I just want a chance to hear it first, so I can figure out what to tell him.”

“Okay,” Melissa said, drawing out the word into at least three syllables. “And this has nothing to do with the bullet I pulled out of your laundry this morning.”

“That’s from my job. Sorry about that,” John said without thinking.

But that should have been okay. He’d told Melissa he was in private-sector security so there was an explanation for that. It wasn’t the kind of explanation you wanted to give to one of your friends from before your life got upended, but it was an—John belatedly realized that maybe the problem was how blasé he’d sounded about that. 

“And it’s not a work thing, why I’m meeting with her,” he belatedly added. He did his best to look uncomfortable, but not so uncomfortable that she’d think he was nervous about something, like getting caught lying. “I’m sorry to be dumping Stiles on you like this—”

“Oh, no, I’m happy to look after him. You know how much I love him,” Melissa said, still looking oddly at him. She tilted her head and twisted her upper body as if she might just walk away with that befuddled expression, then stopped. “The other thing—you know I’m not—I’m not that kind of woman who—when you said ‘physical,’ I wasn’t thinking of fighting at first, even though Talia’s pretty aggressive in the Costco parking lot—”

Oh, shit, right, that _would_ be the other normal explanation. “I’m not interested in her like _that_ ,” John said hastily. “I barely even remember her.”

“Well, she hasn’t changed that much, I’ll give her that,” Melissa muttered. Then blushed and looked a little guilty. “Okay, pretend you didn’t hear me being catty, because really, I’m _not_ that kind of person. I’m just—what I’m trying to say is, if it _was_ a date, I want you to know I’m not going to ding you on it just because of Claudia—”

“It’s your _house_ , I have a little more respect for you than that. If this was that kind of thing, and it’s not,” came out of John’s mouth before he could help himself.

Melissa smiled a little, but she was obviously focused on what she wanted to say rather than John’s mumbling. “But I just want to make sure…you and Stiles have been away for a while, and it sounds like you’ve…done a lot, and I’m not going to pretend I know better and second-guess you on the best way to deal with something like what happened to Claudia, but I just…I just want to make sure you know what you’re getting into. _Whether_ you’re getting into something. Because big changes can make you reckless, and you think you’re doing it for your child, but—I’m not trying to be a busybody, I just know after Rafael—”

At some point while Melissa was speaking, it dawned on John to stop looking at this like a situation he needed to extricate himself from and to start looking at it like a conversation with someone who’d known him and his family for years and who was thinking of them. In other words, like he actually knew Melissa. Which…was yet another sign in a long line of them that he’d been out in the goddamn wild for too long. He was a goddamn _person_. That was the point of coming back here in the first place.

The point, he reminded himself. “Yeah, I know this looks…well, how it looks. But this is me just dipping in a toe,” he told Melissa. For a second he wondered if he sounded too folksy, and then he just pushed that way and stopped thinking about he sounded and just tried to answer the questions in her face. “I know it’s weird to do it at your house, but since we have been away so long, and this town hasn’t changed that much so going out and meeting her somewhere—at least here I’ve had a day to get used to feeling like I—like I don’t really know something I should know. I’m sorry.”

Melissa bit her lip and one of her hands went up like she was going to put it on his arm. Then dropped awkwardly, eventually ending up twisting in the hem of her blouse; John helped where he could by pretending he hadn’t seen that. “Oh, it’s all right,” she said, her voice tight with sympathy. “Look, I’ll take the kids and keep my phone on. It’s supposed to be a nice evening, feel free to use the back porch—you can see the park across the street and there’s usually some kind of kids’ game going on, if you run out of things to talk about?”

“Thanks,” John said sincerely. “I really appreciate it.”

That taken care of, John moved onto figuring out how to deal with Talia. He’d reached out to several contacts as soon as he’d come back from the grocery run, and replies had been trickling in since then. Talia was well-known in supernatural circles, so at first it seemed like John would have plenty of information to work with, but as soon as he started sifting through it, he realized it was ninety-nine percent useless, contradictory gossip. About all that he got out of it was that her immediate family currently consisted of three kids and a younger brother (which he’d already known), she was a very powerful alpha capable of full-shifting (he’d already been planning for a tough opponent), and she had a thing for wrap dresses (made sense with the full-shift). 

At that point, John had to stop because he had to figure out what he and Talia would actually be _doing_ when they met up. He guessed if they had to, they could just talk on the back porch, but that seemed…out of place. It wasn’t a business meeting, and he did want to know what Talia knew about Claudia, and not just because he was curious—in a way that he tried not to think too hard about, because when he did, he started avoiding his own reflection—about whether she’d pegged Claudia’s true background. He just…wanted to know.

He went with iced tea.

“Oh, this is nice,” Talia said as she took the glass from him. Her mouth was twisted a little, as her eyes rested on the string dangling down the side of the glass. “Sugar?”

“Ah…” John looked around the kitchen, silently cursing to himself. He’d gone with tea because he wasn’t exactly a trained host and all the fridge had was milk and soda; he and Melissa had polished off her one bottle of wine the first night.

“Never mind, I can smell it,” Talia said, crossing the room. She poked behind some cereal boxes sitting on the counter and extracted a dusty glass jar filled with sticks of old-fashioned rock-candy, then plopped a stick into her glass. “There we go. Porch?”

John shrugged. “It is a nice view.”

“Also a public one,” Talia said, leveling a look at him. She held it for a few seconds, then smiled and let him show her the way.

The park across the street did have a game going on—some form of soccer, John determined after finally spotting the ball amidst a gaggle of milling kids. Young ones, probably still in grade school. Or maybe it was just practice, considering how sparsely-attended it was, with just a few clumps of parents here and there along the sidelines, all of them doing something besides watching their kids. 

“My son broke up with the girl,” Talia said. When John looked at her, she’d dropped her head to sip at her tea, so her hair curtained off part of her expression. The part that was showing didn’t seem that upset—she didn’t sound upset either. “Well, I think really, she dumped him, but it’s his first crush and he’s a little sore, so I didn’t want to pry too much.”

“Huh,” John said after a moment, when the silence got too long. The thing was, he wasn’t that big on iced tea. Hated it, in fact. He was kicking himself for not just getting a water that he could use as a prop.

“It’s not your fault. Or your son’s fault.” She glanced over, then raised her brows over a wry smile. “If it’s not meant to be, then I don’t think they’d go from werewolves to a screaming match about why neither of them trusted the other enough to admit they knew.”

John could’ve at least gotten a stick of rock sugar, and had something to twiddle. “You not worried about her going off and telling the whole world about werewolves?”

“Oh, no. They had it out and then Derek stormed off and I ended up having to drive her home, so she and I had a little chat. She’s really a very nice girl,” Talia said, taking another sip. 

“Okay, so you took the memories,” John said.

Then nearly pulled a weapon as Talia went ramrod stiff in her chair. “Absolutely not,” she snapped. “Why on earth would you—have you been running with rogues? Who told you that was acceptable?”

“Look, calm down, I didn’t—you can do that, is all I’m saying. I just know that, and I’ve—I’ve seen it. And maybe you might have morals about it, but that’s not really most alphas, and I’ve met ones with packs before,” John said. He kept his hand resting on his pocket as he deliberately drank some of his tea, keeping eye-contact with Talia. “So get off the high horse.”

Talia’s upper lip curled in disgust. Surprisingly, no fangs were showing; her control was a lot better than most alphas, he’d give her that. “It’s not morality,” she said after a tense pause. She still sounded like she wanted to gut him. “It’s just not that precise. I can’t take just the part of the fight where they talked about werewolves without taking the whole fight, and then Paige wouldn’t remember they’d broken up.”

“Well, you could do more than just delete the memory, you could—”

“Not without kidnapping the girl a few times, and at that point I think she’d notice. She seems smart enough, and you can figure out something’s wrong in more ways than just remembering it. I don’t like doing it, and the vast majority of the time it makes more trouble than it saves,” Talia said. Her anger was starting to modulate, replaced by a reluctant curiosity. “She’s a teenage girl who just broke up with her boyfriend. The only people who’d believe her about werewolves are professional hunters, and we all know who they are anyway. You do know a lot about us.”

“I’ve talked to a couple alphas, like I said,” John said.

Talia looked at him for another second, then abruptly twisted back to face the park. The game was over and everyone was congregating on the far side of the field, where the parking lot was. “Most alphas wouldn’t admit to having that power to an outsider. Not even all werewolves know. So I have to ask, what was the context of these talks?”

“You asking if I’m a hunter?” John sighed. “I offered to talk to your Emissary.”

“I wouldn’t be here if I thought you were hunting my family,” Talia said.

“That’s not the same thing,” John said.

“Well, you said it, not me,” Talia said, smiling at him.

That…shit. John slouched back in his seat, annoyed with himself for getting baited so easily. He was—actually, he wasn’t rusty, he just didn’t usually spend time pretending to try and make small talk when really, they were sizing each other up. “They were dead,” he said. He drank some tea. It wasn’t growing on him. “I didn’t kill them, we showed up a long time after. I do some work with the dead, if that’s what you’re after.”

Talia didn’t move, but he still sensed her interest sharpening. “Freelance?”

“Kind of,” John allowed, nodding slowly. “I’m not part of an organization, anyway. I’m just—Stiles is my kid, seeing things other people don’t is what he does, and I just try to make sure he never has to worry about blowback from that.”

“Well, can you really? I mean, with something like that?” Talia asked. Her tone had mellowed out, as if she was just empathizing, but she wasn’t asking just because she felt bad for them. “From what I know, that sort of thing can run on for generations.”

John glanced at her. “What you know?”

Talia paused. It wasn’t a hesitation; it was too deliberate for that. “I didn’t know Claudia was anything but normal.” She stopped again to gauge his reaction. “What your son has—it’s really a dream for someone like me, completely undetectable unless you feel like telling people. It’s not like it comes up in scent or body changes. But I’ll admit, she was…she was _very_ calm, no matter what she saw. A lot of people in this town know—”

Something wet spilled over John’s hand, and he looked down in the middle of shifting his weight to see that he’d jiggled his glass too much.

“Oh, they don’t know what to call it, but they know something’s up. They know some things are a little weird—they know the obituaries don’t read exactly right,” Talia snorted. She tipped her head, then tossed it as a few strands of hair fell into her eyes. “If you’d worked longer for the local police here, they probably would have spelled it out for you, just to be sure.”

“And you get them their talking points?” John guessed.

“Well, I’d be an idiot if I didn’t, wouldn’t I? I think I do a good job—the bodies that _do_ turn up, there are good reasons for them. And reported violent crime is very, very low,” Talia said. Smiling again, with a flash of teeth before she sealed her lips together. “Lowest town in the county for robberies of any type. But you wanted to hear about Claudia, and I haven’t been sharing much. I didn’t know she had that type of background, but I liked her. Everyone liked her. She didn’t really let you put on a front, but then she didn’t judge you most of the time either, and that’s rare.”

And suddenly John went from having the former cop in him bristle to feeling a lump in his throat. Most of the time, when he did think of Claudia, it was at the end when the disorder had been messing with her mind. Trying to figure out how much of it had been the disease, and how much of it had been her not being able to hide any more what she was seeing. What Stiles went through now—the trouble it gave him, and he’d told John over and over he couldn’t _not_ see, the visions had to come. And Claudia had kept that under wraps for years and years, without even a hint except occasionally saying she had a migraine…and John hadn’t goddamn noticed a thing.

“The people who are best at hiding tend to be like that, I find,” Talia added, as if reading John’s thoughts. She pressed her lips together, then raised one hand. “I’m not trying to poke anything now, if that’s a sore spot. I just…we weren’t best friends, by any means, but I do like to think I know what really goes on in this town, and the fact that _I_ didn’t…”

“Well, you said you can’t sniff that kind of thing out,” John muttered.

“No, but with the things she probably saw—this town tends to come up with things you’d think a seer would foresee,” Talia said with a grimace. She poked her swizzle stick around in her drink, then pulled it out and absently crunched on the sugary tip. “I’m shocked that she lived here for so long, now that I know. I think most people would have gotten fed up and moved somewhere with less going on.”

If the idea had been to assuage some lingering guilt, John had to admit he’d fucked up there. He couldn’t stop himself from twitching; she looked over, but she didn’t ask. She did raise her brows when he moved his shoulders defensively, but she didn’t ask.

“I’ll be honest,” Talia added after they’d sat for a few minutes in silence. The park was empty now, and dusk was creeping across it towards them. “I don’t have that much more. A couple stories, and a book list—I’m more than happy to share. But what I wanted to ask in return—”

“He can’t see on command,” John said automatically.

Talia made an annoyed sound. “Well, I know that. I’m not a _complete_ neophyte when it comes to something like that, and what I wanted to know was about what he’s already seen—the other woman, the blonde one—”

A car came around the corner. It was going a little fast for a residential street like this, but it wouldn’t have really caught John’s attention if somebody hadn’t jumped out of the passenger side while it was still moving. John was immediately on his feet, and Talia was three steps ahead of him, halfway to the sidewalk.

“Derek?” Talia called sharply, reaching for her son, who’d landed mostly okay but who’d then turned to yell something at the drive and tripped himself on the edge of the sidewalk. She got to him and grabbed his elbow, then did a double-talk as the car pulled to a screeching halt in front of them. “Alan? What—”

“I’m sorry, but Deucalion’s gone,” said the man pulling himself out of the driver’s door. Black, neatly dressed, maybe John’s age to a few years younger. “He took most of his pack with him, and—I told him, I told him we hadn’t verified anything Gerard said yet, but—but I think—I think he went ahead anyway—”

“Mom, I think Peter’s there!” Derek said, eyes wild. He was just as out of breath as this Alan. “He and I got into a fight—I told him about breaking up with Paige and—he got mad—said I’d just made him waste time because he’d helped me to talk to Ennis and now he had to tell Ennis—and Ennis went with Deucalion. I think Peter followed them.”

Talia sucked in her breath. Then twisted on Alan, who startled before dropping back and curling his fingers to catch something dropping out of his sleeve. “And you _went and got my son_?”

“Kali wasn’t told,” Alan said desperately. “When she heard—she’s blaming you if something happens to Ennis. She chased Laura into the woods, Laura managed to call me—I got to your house, so Cora’s somewhere safe, but—”

“ _Fuck_ ,” Talia hissed. She jerked at Derek’s arm, hard enough that John saw him whiten in the face. It didn’t seem intentional, but she also didn’t seem to notice what she was doing. “And this is the weekend no one’s closer than Kingsford—where’s Kali?”

Derek had already been looking like he didn’t recognize his mother, and now he was starting to look like she terrified him. He tried to twist out of her grip and she yanked at him, then looked as if she’d completely forgotten he was there as he nearly fell on his face in front of her.

Well, shit, John thought, and then he opened his mouth. “What’s going on?”

Alan and Derek looked at him. Alan did not seem surprised at all to see him. Derek did, but then got over it enough to growl, “So did your kid see this coming too?”

“Shut up, son,” John said. “He’s at the movies, as far as I know he’s seeing whatever Marvel film’s up this year. And anyway, I’m the one with the weapons.”

Talia looked at him. It was like she wanted to punch him and hug him and wasn’t sure if either of those were going to win out over clawing somebody else in the face.

It reminded him a lot of what he looked like whenever Mieczyslaw offered to help him out on a job. He always needed it, but did it stick in his craw. “Look, yeah, I…do this too. And I’m between things right now,” John said to her, as levelly as he could. “If it’s about protecting your family, I get it.”

“It’s—” Alan started.

“It’s about that _now_ , now that that shortsighted asshole is making it that way,” Talia snapped. She pushed past Derek, paused, and then looked John up and down. “Well, where are they?”

“One sec,” John said, stepping back onto the porch. He picked up the inner liner of one of the planters and heaved it out, grabbed the bag under it, and then dropped the liner back in the pot. “Okay, let’s go. You can fill me in on the way.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you've read my other stories, you know I have strong feelings about the whole memory-alteration thing, which essentially boils down to: TW just created a massive violation of trust between characters that wouldn't even do what it's supposed to do, TW really never gets past "this is a Plot Device we needed to retcon the Plot Hole we just opened up" to properly look at the inherent issues with something like that (then again, this is not unusual), and I prefer my female characters better than that, so I'm creating a Talia who makes sense to me.


	11. Now

Unlike some people, Peter has a clear sense of his limits, and hunger _does_ affect him. Not in the way that Talia thinks—granola bars are a ridiculous idea considering daily protein needs for werewolves—but enough that before he does anything else, he gets himself a dinner from the local grocery’s deli counter. And since he’s there, he picks up the platters for the patrol.

“You mean _I_ picked them up, and you’re just hijacking,” Derek grumbles.

“I don’t recall asking you to come, Derek. Did I?” Peter says pleasantly.

Derek rolls his eyes. “You’re gonna try and kill Allison’s dad again, you have that look. Also, why am I carrying them if you’re stealing them?”

“Because that’s your reward for being smart enough to figure out that I wasn’t really going home, yet not smart enough to know what to do about it,” Peter says.

His nephew stops and glares at him. 

As Peter is long past the point of _needing_ to educate the idiot, he keeps on walking towards the blind. Derek hurries after him anyway, and with enough of a racket that Peter regrets his decision to not just deck Derek when the other man had caught him at the grocery store. Peter hadn’t been thinking he’d outright sneak up on Chris, but catching the man off-guard…

“You know, Mom’s still somewhere out here too, and when she finally gets done, she’s not going to be thrilled if we’re all fighting,” Derek mutters. Then angrily swings the deli bags between them when Peter looks over. “I don’t even fit in your car trunk anymore, Peter. I know that’s what you’re thinking, that’s the face you always wear.”

“And yet, just three weeks ago, I distinctly remember booting you out of there. You and that girlfriend of yours, and I don’t believe for a second that that had anything to do with checking the suspension,” Peter says. Well, if he can’t keep Chris from getting a heads-up, he might as well lean into it and leverage Derek’s propensity for ranting. He’s really never understood where people get the idea that Derek is the strong, silent type, because it barely takes anything to get the man complaining. “But never mind, let’s not rehash yet another failed date night—”

The bags make it to waist-height before Derek remembers if he throws those, Peter is the only person who will _not_ be mad at him for wasting dinner. “It wasn’t date night, we were trying to—Allison was—”

Peter rolls his eyes. “Derek. I don’t care.” 

The blind’s in view now, and one of the twins is peering out from it at them, a dismayed expression on his face. They duck back in as soon as they realize Peter’s spotted them and Peter can make out urgent whispering. Then Braeden walks out. She levels a look at Peter, slows long enough for him to note the heavy workbag slung over her shoulder—he can make out the outlines of a rifle case within—and then turns around and heads off down one of the trails.

“Well, anyway, we got that taken care of, so we shouldn’t be talking about it,” Derek says, annoyingly repetitive. “Shouldn’t we be talking about what Mom’s doing?”

“Yes,” Peter says, and then he unhooks the bags from Derek’s hands as Derek stares dumbly at him.

The birdwatching hut is only about ten yards away, but by the time Peter gets inside, the twin has sneaked out, probably to join Braeden, and only an unenthusiastic Chris Argent is there to meet him. Chris is sitting on a portable camp stool and fiddling with one of his spike-mounted laser motion detectors, and he doesn’t bother getting up for Peter. 

“I have no idea what you did to get Stiles mad at you, and I don’t want to have any idea,” Chris says. He lifts the spike and looks down its length, and if Peter asked, it’d no doubt have something to do with alignment and the fact that the tip points to the exact center of Peter’s chest is utterly coincidental. “You should just apologize already.”

“Oh, is that the will of the people?” Peter says, after spending a second biting back his first impulse. He hooks over another stool and sets one of the bags on it, freeing up that hand so that he can unwrap the deli platter in the other bag. “Or is it just what generations of distilled Argent hunting wisdom says?”

Chris flicks the edge of the detector, then reaches around and pokes the other side. Then brings his arms down and close to his chest, hunching over the spike and squinting at its top. “You can’t kill me with a toothpick and cheese cubes, Peter.”

“No, but given how busy John is, it’d be a while before he could get around to properly reconstituting you,” Peter says, to the tune of Derek sucking his breath in and then groaning. As Chris’ head snaps up, he turns to the side and sets the platter on the little ledge fronting the main window. “Speaking of the _actual_ reason I came to talk to you.”

“Didn’t Talia talk to you?” Chris asks, looking pained.

Peter slams down the second platter next to the first. The _thwap_ noise plastic makes isn’t very satisfying, but it does flush out a nearby heartbeat; predictably, the twin hadn’t gone that far. “You know, I don’t know why everyone seems to think Talia and I are constantly in touch. She’s a very busy alpha, and—”

“It’s more like you think really alike,” Derek mutters, because for some reason, probably his complete absence of any sense of self-preservation, he’s still here.

“—anyway, John’s not talking to her either, so I don’t know what she’d be talking to me about? ‘Don’t worry, Peter, it can’t possibly be another failure from the past coming to shoot you because nobody bothered to even tell you we had a problem’?” Peter finishes with a sharp look at Derek.

His nephew twitches towards the door, then slides a few inches left so that he can pretend it was all part of him leaning against the jamb. Then looks offended when Peter tosses him the balled-up bags, as if they don’t both know what Stiles does to people who litter in the preserve. “Scott said he told you nobody’s died yet,” Derek still manages to say.

“He’s right, nobody has. I’m pretty sure that’s why John wanted to keep you two out of it,” Chris says.

“Because hiding a threat _to_ us is such a perfect way to ensure we don’t go on a killing spree,” Peter says, turning back to him.

Chris presses his lips together. Then abruptly heaves himself up from the stool, spitting an exasperated noise at the empty end of the blind. He tucks the spike under one arm and actually comes over and stands by Peter. “Never said John was thinking straight about it,” he mutters, looking over the platter. Another eye-flick towards Peter, and then he starts picking out cold cuts. “Do you at least know what your sister’s up to?”

“Am I supposed to?” Peter snaps.

“I’m not asking about whatever the hell is eating you two right now, all right? I’m just asking the literal question,” Chris says, annoyed. He moves onto the vegetable side and like the perpetual martyr he is, takes plain celery sticks. “Do you?”

Peter starts to answer and then catches Derek shifting out of the corner of his eye. His nephew’s heartbeat has nervously sped up too, though when Peter raises a brow in that direction, Derek just scowls.

“Somewhere in the preserve, hopefully with Cora tailing her.” Then Peter glares at Chris. “I said hopefully. And we wouldn’t be relying on Cora’s attention span holding up if _your_ daughter wasn’t busy enabling Stiles’ little—”

“Honestly, Peter, would you rather count on Scott to make sure Stiles doesn’t cross a line?” Chris says, half a celery stick dangling from the corner of his mouth. He looks at Peter, then twists the stick so that it snaps. Chews and swallows, still looking at Peter. He smells serious. “Ghost Riders.”

Halfway through an irritated inhale, Peter has to concentrate in order to not choke. “Excuse me?”

“Ghost Riders,” Chris says, frowning. “ _Ghost_ Riders. You know, like the song? Jim Morrison? Don’t tell me this one you of all people don’t kn—”

“Demonic cowboys—oh, yes, that would fit with the amnesia and time slips,” Peter says, doing some fast weighing up of various personalities and deciding it’s better to play ignorant for now. John and Stiles covering for each other, badly, is a depressingly common feature of their relationship; however, the rest of the pack being in on it is _not_ how this usually works. Something beyond just the Stilinski attitude towards trust management is going on. “But… _here_?”

“They got called here,” Derek says. “We’re working on it.”

Peter looks sharply at him. Derek looks right back at Peter, not dropping his head, and that just sharpens the sting, that it’s been barely an hour since Peter left Stiles and _Derek_ already knows more about this than Peter.

“Who told you?” Chris says, surprised. He’s also looking at Derek.

Well, of course now Derek looks uncomfortable. “…Scott. But look—”

“Does Allison know?” Chris immediately snaps. He shoves the last bit of celery into his pocket and grabs up a workbag from the floor. “Is she—”

“She’s still with Stiles! So’s Scott, and Scott—look, _Stiles_ told him, okay?” Derek says, backing up and raising his hands. “I don’t know why everybody’s keeping this a secret, I’m just—if I’m supposed to know who knows and who doesn’t know, I don’t. Okay?”

“It’s not your fault, Derek,” Peter says.

He actually, sincerely means it. His nephew can’t be held accountable for why Stiles would lie, or lie so badly, when fact-checking it would be so simple. And Stiles would know that Peter would do that, which means Stiles’ goal wasn’t actually to make Peter believe him, but instead to get Peter to have to go away and talk to other people. Which means they are fighting about something.

“I don’t think Scott knew this whole time. Actually, I know he just found out, because he told me right before I went to get the deli stuff and I asked him if he knew before today and he said no, and you know he’s a bad liar. Also, I didn’t know why John’s been blowing off Mom, and if she’d known, she would have made sure we all knew,” Derek says. He keeps raising and lowering his voice, unable to decide whether he’s going all-in on being aggressive or not. At any rate, he’s not even close to hiding how awkward he obviously feels. “She would’ve dragged you into it a lot earlier, and—”

“John figured out it was Ghost Riders a while ago. Early last week, if I had to guess,” Chris says. He doesn’t seem any more thrilled about the situation, but unlike Derek, he knows better than to be surprised by it. “He’s been going around exorcising them and forcing them to give up the people they took. I think he’s been too busy to work on _how_ they got here, so that’s probably where Stiles came in.”

“That would have been how Talia got wind of it,” Peter says. “You might be able to banish a demon without her noticing, but you can’t talk about supernatural things in this town and expect her to ignore it.”

Chris grimaces. “She guessed it was really John right off and didn’t bother talking to Stiles?”

Peter started to say ‘yes,’ and then he stopped himself. He didn’t know—that was probably right, given the people in question, but he didn’t know. He didn’t know, because Stiles hadn’t mentioned any of this to him, and so _he didn’t know_.

“Melissa put some pieces together from what the hospital’s been seeing and talked to me, and I figured out the rest. She was supposed to go talk to John, and I came out here because there’s at least one Ghost Rider left to exorcise and now Talia’s pissed off at it,” Chris says with a sigh. He absently puts one hand in his pocket, blinks, and then pulls out the celery stub. It’s a little bit lint-y, but he rubs that off with his thumb and then slips the stub into his mouth. “John texted me that he’s got a containment circle already set up, just gotta drive towards it, and also he’s double-checked and no, we really can’t kill it, and it doesn’t feel pain either so mauling it’s just going to get Talia dumped in—”

“She’s not an idiot, Chris,” Peter snaps.

“Yeah, but she’s mad at John, and since he’s still not talking to her, it’s all she’s got,” Chris points out.

As a person, Chris is considerably more tolerable than Victoria, when Peter cares to think about the Argents enough to rank them, but he also knows Peter’s family better. Which alone is enough to raise the bristles. But Peter is not, after all, a mere slave to his basest instincts, and…his sister is his sister. Damn it. “Derek?”

“I’ve been trying to get Cora for the last five minutes,” Derek mutters, and now that Peter’s paying attention to him again, Peter can hear the minute electronic blips and burrs of Derek’s phone. “She’s—I know she’s still with Mom, if she wasn’t, she’d be texting about it and—I’m gonna call her. Be right back.”

Chris waits till Derek leaves the blind to say: “Victoria talked Kali into tracking her too.”

“I thought you two weren’t talking?” Peter says. Because yes, that is helpful of Chris, but again, Chris is far too good at predicting them for Peter to let the man get comfortable with it.

“We’re not,” Chris says, tone flattening out. He stares at Peter, silently daring the follow-up question.

Too predictable, getting him riled up that way will just affirm all his old hunter prejudices, and anyway, Peter can guess that Melissa was the go-between, given she and Victoria had driven to John’s office together. “Well, so to be sure, the ghost at the old factory wasn’t real?”

“The what?” Chris says, blinking.

“The ghost. The—that’s how John tried to explain away what Stiles has been doing, and Talia was trying to raid John’s files for women in black when I called her earlier,” Peter says. It’s possible Chris just hasn’t heard all the lies, but something about Chris’ confusion rings a faint alarm. “There was a ghost at the old factory, and high-school morons were going over to try and see it, and Lydia’s mother had complained—”

“No, there was one. But why is Talia still looking into that?” Chris says. “That happened over a week ago, before all of this Ghost Rider stuff really got going.”

“A week,” Peter says.

Chris looks startled. Then he draws a breath, slowly, and his expression moves from confusion into grim understanding. “You didn’t…it was just a ghost,” he says. “Stiles handled it. I was on patrol and ran into him and Lydia on their way back—he said they’d just detoured for a look because they were going to some sky-watching thing with you, and it was so easy he just figured he’d do it right then.”

Not sky-watching. Moss-harvesting, under a rare planetary conjunction. A very obscure bit of herbal lore that Peter had _very generously_ let that woman in on. “Lydia,” he says.

“Yeah,” Chris says. He pauses. “Peter, you know you can’t just break into her house again and—”

“Who said I was going to talk to her?” Peter says, not bothering to stop on his way out of the blind. “There’s no point in talking to people who don’t want to talk to you, Chris. It’d be a complete waste of time.”

“Well, then what are you doing? Where are you going?” Chris asks, following Peter. “Look, whatever’s up, it’s clearly not just—”

“My sister,” Peter says. Then looks over his shoulder and pretends to be surprised. “Well, we _do_ do that, you know. Talk to each other.”

“Shit,” Chris exhales. Not that he—or Derek, who’s caught sight of them and is hurrying back—stop Peter.

Predictable.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Peter so hates it when he has to be the detective. He loves being a know-it-all, but actually investigating is so much _work_.
> 
> So this story might have a little undertone of role-reversal, since usually it's Peter who's up to something and Stiles is the one who has to keep peeling off all the onion-y layers of scheming to figure out which past traumatic Hale family event it is this time.


	12. Then

The factory where this Blackwood guy was meeting this Gerard Argent guy was a piece of shit wreck from five miles off. “Why the hell would you meet anybody here?” John muttered, checking the surroundings. “Wasn’t this place impossible to sell because it’d been declared a hazardous waste site, or something like that?”

“Hazardous waste?” Derek asked from the backseat. “I thought a worker just fell into a machine and died.”

“Nobody died,” Talia said, sounding like the way her hands were gripping the steering wheel: tight and numb. “And probably because this was Gerard’s suggestion, and Deucalion’s a trusting idiot and I swear to God, if he dragged Peter along on his little idealistic crusade I’m going to rip off his head and pike it on a—”

Deaton, sitting in the backseat with Derek, gingerly cleared his throat. “Ah, Talia, I believe that might be—”

“Yeah,” John said, having already spotted the break in the brush where the woods started. He traced back from there across the overgrown clearing around the factory, then reached over and grabbed the steering wheel. “Pull over. We’re going to have to walk down the hill.”

Talia snarled at him. John paused with his gun halfway unholstered, then gave himself a shake and just gave her a couple seconds. She was upset because her family was in trouble, and he needed to be sensitive to that and not be an asshole just because it wasn’t his family in trouble and he had the emotional distance on it. Anyway, she was letting the car slow down.

She wasn’t letting him twist the wheel as much as he wanted, so the car missed the patch of gravel and ended up in some weeds instead, but no harm done. John let go of the wheel, checked where his safety was, and then popped the door open on his side. He went up on his toes to scan the factory below them again, noting that there were a couple more fresh breaks—looked like something had already happened, and more than one person had made a run for it. “Probably a good sign,” he muttered, taking a step forward. Then he looked back. “What, are you coming?”

Talia, Derek, and Deaton were all still in the car, staring at him. One or two of them, he could get, but all three of them, with the same expression like they had _no_ idea what he was doing…before he could tell them how annoying that was, Talia blurred into motion and was nearly up by him in a second.

“Wolfsbane,” she said, sniffing loudly. She leaned forward, nose wrinkling in clear distaste, but kept sniffing. “Wolfsbane all over the place. But I don’t smell any fire…”

“It’s a factory, maybe they just turned on a fan or something. You could get plenty of dispersion without having to blow something up,” John said. “Or—there any chemicals?”

“Not…not really,” Talia said, though she was frowning over something. “A little oil, a little…I think it’s just traces. There’s not enough wolfsbane to really affect me, I don’t think…you’re right, it’s spread out from whatever happened. But if it’s been that long—”

Her eyes were going red. John took a prudent step back from her, and kept his eyes on her hairline for any signs of a shift. “Hear anyone?”

“Yes,” Talia said shortly, and then she leaped over John’s head.

Swearing, John dropped into a squat with his back to the car and swung his gun around, but she’d already disappeared into the trees. She was making enough of a racket that he wouldn’t have any problem following her, but he wasn’t sure that was the best move.

“What are you waiting for? If you aren’t scared of Mom, shouldn’t you go help her?” Derek snapped from behind John.

“Okay, look, just because I don’t run head-first into—yeah, _no_ ,” John said, pivoting and leveling his gun at Derek.

Whose eyes widened. Deaton, still halfway out of the car, did not look so shocked, and his one hand wasn’t visible. He did stop moving when John glanced at him, raising his brows in a silent question.

“I’m not going to shoot you, just stay with the car in case we need it,” John said.

“What—that’s my mom, and—well, he—” Derek sputtered, getting over his fear enough to be annoyed again. His head swiveled back and forth between John and Deaton. “Who made you alpha?”

“You know, you’re right. Go ahead, ignore me, and let them steal the car,” John said. He looked at Deaton again, who didn’t speak or show his hands, but who did settle himself into his position.

Well, for a druid that was as good as any other answer, so John lowered his gun and took a couple sideways steps away from the car. Then, when he was close enough to the trees that any shot at him would have a decent chance of going astray, he turned fully around and headed in. Derek was yelling something after him, which was going to give away their location if it hadn’t been already. But that was fine with John—he wanted anybody roaming around the place to head for them or for Talia. He only had his basic charms with him, so he could use all of the cover he could get.

The going wasn’t too bad—the woods looked like they’d once been regularly cleared, and had only recently been left to grow over. Not much to trip over, but then, that also meant there wasn’t much to show trails once you got into the woods. Broken branches and scuffed-up stones here and there, and then John crossed a bloody patch of grass.

He didn’t bend down to check, just whistled a cantrip of Mieczyslaw’s and the blood flashed red: less than an hour old. But nothing else lighted up—

Well, nothing around him. Just out of the corner of his eye, he thought he saw something flit across the factory’s broken windows. Shit, so somebody had died.

John stood in place for a couple seconds, taking deeper breath after deeper breath, till his vision started to go fuzzy. He sank into it, then twisted carefully around in a circle; since he wasn’t born into this, his mind and body didn’t have the natural intuition to work together and keep him from falling on his face during a trance.

Nothing came up. And when he blinked the world clear again, nothing attacked him. Grimacing, he resettled his grip on his gun and then stopped fucking around and just got his ass down to the factory.

It wasn’t any prettier up close. But…most of the ugly looked old, like it’d been that way for a while. There were bloodstains fresh enough that John didn’t have to check them with magic, and two of the broken windows still had edges that gleamed, but otherwise it didn’t look as if a fight had happened. Which just set John’s teeth on edge.

He worked his way around the building till he came to a loading dock. Hopped up onto it and ducked past the half-hung rolling sheet-metal door. It wasn’t actually that dark inside, courtesy of all the broken windows. Wasn’t too much to see either—anything portable had long since been removed, with only the utilities fixtures left.

Dripping noises. John looked up, keeping his gun leveled at the empty center of the room, and saw water droplets coming off most of the beams. It hadn’t rained the entire day, as far as he knew, so…and where was the water even coming from? There was no way anyone was still paying the water bill.

John whistled again, but didn’t see anything. No ghosts, no living people. He backed up against the concrete by where he’d come in, then was about to twist around when his dead wife said something.

She wasn’t there. He’d buried her—he’d made _sure_ of it, him and Mieczyslaw, and Mieczyslaw would—should— _would_ know. She wasn’t there. There was nothing in front of him, and it was all in his head, and he was back here for the first time since she’d died and hadn’t been really goddamn dealing with her death anyway, he knew that. He knew he had pretty damn good reasons for just having the memories of her ambush him—her at the end, screaming things at him in Polish he hadn’t understood. He knew that, and it still spooked the hell out of him.

_He’ll kill you,_ she’d been shouting at him. John had had enough Polish at that point to parse that out. But what he hadn’t been able to understand, not till now, was the next part: _He’ll poison the rain, and the rain will poison them and bring fire to you._

Before his mind could put it all together, he was stepping back into the factory. The pipes were still intact and he followed them through the building, them and the water pooling on the ground. There were metal parts scattered out from one of the thickest pipes. John stared at the pipe for a second, stared right into the dense black hole in the middle of it. A valve, he thought. Open?

Then he turned around, and his eyes tracked straight back to a body crumpled against the wall.

A young man, maybe twenty, maybe younger. It was hard to tell under the greyish-black network of veins covering his face and throat and hands—telltale sign of wolfsbane poisoning. He was still with it enough to hiss when John grabbed his arm, but otherwise he didn’t offer up any resistance at all. 

John hauled him up into a fireman’s carry just long enough to get him out of the factory, then dropped him onto the loading dock. His breathing was starting to rattle; John took a knee right next to him, biting back a curse to spit out a purging incantation instead. It wasn’t going to reverse the damage done so far, but it’d at least get the wolfsbane out of the man’s system.

Sticky black tar started to well up out of the man’s mouth and nose and ears. He choked, then stopped breathing right as John reached to turn his head. So instead of doing that, John slapped him. Then yanked him up by the shoulders and shoved his torso half-over a lifted knee, chanting faster and jiggling him to shake the tar out. The man gagged, thank God, then started breathing again. The veiny black network over his skin was starting to recede.

And that was when John happened to look up, not thinking about it, and spotted the new-looking hose snaking out of a window and going around the corner. The man was starting to come around and grunted as John shoved him off the knee. Moved feebly, which John ignored as he hopped over the man and scooted around the corner and shot the asshole standing in the half-covered flatbed of the truck parked on that side of the building and aiming what sure as hell looked like a flamethrower in John’s direction.

John aimed for and hit the asshole’s arm. The asshole, after dropping the flamethrower, tore off the rest of the cover and dove behind the plastic tanks it’d been hiding, and then took a shot that chipped the concrete a couple inches from John’s head. Something on the side of John’s face stung and then felt hot and wet; chips caught him. So John shot through the tanks, betting that they were empty by now, and hit the asshole.

“Peter!” somebody screamed from several yards behind John, and John almost shot the tanks again.

“What,” gurgled a new voice John didn’t recognize.

“Oh, my God, where have you been? What did they do?” Talia continued, sounding as if she was up on the platform. “Where’s Deucalion? Did he—”

“…kill him _without_ me…you’re all bloody…” the new voice muttered, in between racking wet coughs.

John didn’t look back, since bad as it sounded, it also didn’t sound like a fight. He jumped off the platform and eased around the corner, watching out for any sudden revivals. When he didn’t get any, he went up to the truck—the side said it belonged to the local electric company—pulled himself into the back. The tanks sloshed a little as he bumped into them, but there wasn’t any smell: they’d been filled with water, which he’d guessed had been bumped into the old factory’s pipes to work the sprinklers or something like that. Then he worked past one and found himself looking down at what appeared to be a very recently dead man.

Since he’d shot the man in the forearm, that seemed a little quick, so John got down and checked. No pulse, no breathing. John dug a pendulum out of his pocket and held it over the center of the man’s chest, and it stayed pointed straight down, even when he shook the chain. Which…wasn’t really how John had wanted this to end, but at this point, he’d been in enough bad firefights that he was always going to take the ending that got him home to Stiles.

“Heart attack,” he said when he came back to Talia and the man he guessed was her brother Peter.

Peter was awake, and looked lucid, but Talia was having to hold him up by the shoulders as he spit up more black tar. The air right around them smelled like burnt wolfsbane, so Talia must have just dosed him. Where her hand was wrapped around the side of his neck, her skin was pulsing with dark veins so it almost looked like he had when John had first come up.

“Heart attack?” Talia said disbelievingly. “Are you kidding me?”

“That’s what it looks like, as far as I can tell. It wasn’t my shot—I hit him in the arm, and even if that had been imported wolfsbane in that bullet, which it wasn’t, it wouldn’t have worked that fast,” John said, more than a little annoyed. “Well, you said he was acting kind of crazy anyway—something else wrong with him? I didn’t think werewolves had a lot of cardio issues.”

Talia blinked hard. Her brother jerked his head up, like he wanted to say something, and then tipped over against her in a fit of coughing. She wrapped her arm around his back and John had to give her credit, she didn’t seem to care one bit about the mess Peter was making on her. “Wait, John, that’s not—that’s _Gerard_ back there. Not Deucalion.”

“Okay, so…”

“Gerard’s not a werewolf. Gerard’s the Arg—the hunter,” Talia said.

John started to tell her that wasn’t what he remembered her saying, and then stopped and actually thought about it. “I thought he was the crazy one who was asking for a meeting.”

“No, he was taking it, because Deucalion was asking for the meeting. Because Deuc thought we could talk Gerard out of hunting us,” Talia said. 

“Yeah, okay, right, because you said Deucalion was one of the alphas…and I guess the heart attack makes more sense that way. He looks like he’s sixty or so,” John said. “You get his crew?”

Talia blinked again. “His crew?”

“You have blood on your face,” John pointed out. “Also, the guy’s old. Why the hell would he come out to a meeting with a bunch of werewolves with just water tanks and one gun, even if it’s supposed to be peace talks?”

“Oh, this is from—Blackwood’s pack is running all over the place, doped up on wolfsbane. He had boobytraps in there, from what I can tell,” Talia said, jerking her head at the factory door. Then she batted away the elbow her brother was weakly trying to insert into her ribs. “ _No_ , Peter, I didn’t kill Deuc. I haven’t found him yet, but trust me, I will and then yes, I’ll let you help.”

“Did you kill _anybody_?” John asked.

“They’re high,” Talia said, looking oddly at John. She tucked Peter more closely against her, then hauled them both to their feet. Peter wobbled sharply, making pained noises, and then made a distinctly embarrassed one as Talia unceremoniously heaved him up over one shoulder. “They don’t know what they’re doing—I knocked them out and left territory marks over them, so when they come to, they’ll know who to go see. And if they don’t, I suppose I might have to do something then, but right now, they’ve been—”

“Is that a good idea? When you don’t know who else this Argent guy could’ve brought?” John said.

A little red came into Talia’s eyes. Then went, as she took a deep breath. “I came here to get my brother. I wasn’t expecting…this.”

“Well, I got a dead body back there and I didn’t expect that either,” John said. Then held his hand. “Look, I get it, your brother still doesn’t look—but I just have two reloads with me, and your son’s back at the car with—”

“Alan can keep anybody official from coming to check before we get things cleaned up,” Talia said. She didn’t like what he was making her think about, but she was thinking. “But Peter needs to get to the clinic. I don’t have that much wolfsbane with me, and—how many did Deuc and Ennis bring?”

That was to Peter, who’d been trying to interrupt for a while. “Eight?” Peter rasped. “Talia, Deuc—Gerard cornered him, I didn’t see but I heard—did something—screaming, he was screaming, and then Gerard came back in. He was—was taking them one by one, I think, and then Ennis—I think Ennis got the ones who—who could walk, they got out of here, but there were—”

“There’s nobody left in the factory, but I didn’t check all around the outside,” John said. He hadn’t even really paid much attention to the side where the truck was sitting, aside from the truck itself.

As for that…he wasn’t thrilled about leaving an uncleaned homicide scene behind him, especially with people he barely knew, but he really wasn’t prepared for chasing down multiple targets. If he could get back to Melissa’s house and pick up the rest of his gear, he wouldn’t have a problem, but then he’d have to explain what was going on to Stiles—shit, the movie. It was long over now, and if John sped back, he’d barely get there in time to beat Melissa and the boys.

“Alan will watch the perimeter, and I can deal with anyone who’s left. But then you have to take Peter back,” Talia said. Her expression was as screwed-up against unpleasant realizations as John was feeling, but when her brother tried to protest, she just hiked him further up her shoulder. Then, while Peter was busy having the wind shoved out of him, she swiveled around and leaned over the edge of the loading dock and dropped him on John.

John had had his arms out for the man, but not because he’d agreed to do it. He was just going on reflex, seeing the end of the motion coming, and then—“Shit, look, I’m not—I get what you’re saying, but—”

Talia was already disappearing into the factory. “It’s okay! If your gun goes off, it’s not like it’ll hit anybody besides me and I’ll heal!”

The gun did not misfire, and it wasn’t thanks to her. It wasn’t much thanks to Peter either, who at least didn’t struggle but who grunted and grumbled and muttered nonstop about who the hell was John and what had he done with Talia and Peter didn’t trust him one bit.

“Yeah, well—” John finally got enough of a grip on Peter so that he could safely put away his gun “—I’m not big on your sister’s ideas either, but you think either of us is getting her back here?”

That shut Peter up, which was great, since it was an uphill walk back to the car and John wasn’t going to have the breath to argue. Peter was a little lighter than John would’ve expected—he had height, but maybe hadn’t hit twenty, given the lack of bulk—but he wasn’t exactly a bag of feathers. He was also slippery after purging out of the wolfsbane, and John wasn’t sure where else he was hurt, so was trying to minimize the holds.

John was half-hoping that Derek would come out when they got close enough for the man to smell what was going on, but no such luck. Deaton was at least still there, and came out and took charge of Peter the moment he saw John.

“Derek got a call from his sister and went back to town,” Deaton explained. He gave Peter, who did not seem to like the man, a cursory once-over, then stabbed Peter in the back with a syringe as Peter was turning to say something to John. It was so neatly done that John hadn’t spotted the syringe coming out of his sleeve till it was going into Peter. “Here, these are the car keys and the keys to my clinic—you know where it is?”

“ _I’ll_ tell him,” Peter snarled. “And how about you tell how you’re going to explain letting Derek walk into a trap to Talia?”

“I thought the hunters had Laura,” John said. He gave Peter his forearm, letting the man use it as leverage to drag himself to half-sitting and away from Deaton, and kept his other hand on his gun.

Both Peter and Deaton looked oddly at him. “No, Kali, but she got away. I talked to her, she didn’t sound like she was lying,” Deaton said.

“Kali’s not a…okay, fine, I have no idea who half the people involved in this are. But we do know there are people running around here—” John gestured with his chin at the woods “—who aren’t thinking straight, at the very least, and Derek’s what, sixteen?”

“It was either that or Laura came here, from what she was saying, and given what’s happened so far, I thought they’d both have better chances if they were closer to town,” Deaton sighed. He squatted back and wiped his hands off on a tissue, then considered them. He was being calm enough about everything that that was making John wary, but he also didn’t give John the sense that he was deliberately trying to maneuver people. He just seemed to be reacting, and maybe doing that when he should be acting. “Talia’s near vendetta-angry, from the sound of it. I think I am better used here, to keep it quiet till we can sort out who is an enemy and who isn’t. The clinic has mountain ash barriers that should keep you safe, and I think if you call Laura, you could persuade her to meet you there.”

“Then give Peter your phone,” John said, making up his mind. He got one hand under Peter, who was looking surprised and dubious about this, and helped him up. “They’re not going to recognize my number, and if they pick up anyway, I don’t know what to tell them to calm them down. You can talk, right?”

Asking Peter, who got offended enough that it powered him to his feet and between that and John, they were able to get him into the front seat of the car. Once he’d passed over the phone, Deaton wisely stood back and let that happen, and the last John saw of the man, he was standing there looking out at the factory, arms crossed over his chest.

“Do you have _any_ idea what you’re doing, letting him do that?”

“Nope. You?” John said.

That caught Peter off-guard enough that he just stared at John. And then the back wheels hit the edge of the asphalt as John turned the car back onto the road, and Peter went white in the face and looked as if he needed all of his sarcasm to keep from throwing up. He coughed hard into his hand, fumbling with Deaton’s phone. When he finally got somebody to take his call, he sounded so bad that he had to put his head down between his knees before they seemed to understand what he was saying.

John wasn’t actually a masochist and he wasn’t happy when people suffered, but he wasn’t going to toss the useful out just because he was uncomfortable with it. So he left Peter alone till they got far enough towards town that he wasn’t keeping such a tight eye on the sides of the road. And he might have just left it even longer, since it would have made the trip to the clinic easier, but at that point, his conscience started nagging.

“You going to live over there?” he asked.

“Well, I think it depends. Where are we going?” Peter muttered.

“The clinic,” John said, frowning. “That guy is your Emissary, isn’t he?”

“What, you’re asking _now_? Me?” Peter said. He shifted in his seat, still pale and sweaty and holding his belly with one hand, but he didn’t look like he was going to pass out. “Who are _you_ , by the way? I don’t think we were introduced, what with—”

“Me shooting this Gerard guy and Talia going off to tear up this Deucalion guy’s pack?” John said, sighing. “Well, aside from somebody who’s got a vested interest in not reporting this to the police, at least not without a lot of spin—”

Peter rolled his eyes. Then looked like maybe he’d made himself a little sick doing that. “Obviously.”

“John Stilinski. I used to live here,” John said. “My wife was in Talia’s book club.”

It was quiet in the car for a few minutes. “Book club?” Peter said under his breath, like he didn’t want to sound as uncertain as he did. “But all they read are Pulitzer Prize winners and lists like that. None of it’s _useful_.”

“Compared to what?” John asked absently. They were starting to pass houses now and even though it was late evening, it was still light enough and Peter was still enough of a visible mess that he didn’t want to get hung up at an intersection if he could help it. “You wouldn’t know if they still put the patrol cars in the same places, would you?”

“Well, like that, I mean. Things that’ll keep you alive,” Peter said. Then, before John had to repeat himself, he raised his arm and pointed left. “That road, there are more privacy hedges.”

Then he flopped back, already out of breath. He was huffing hard enough that John glanced over, but Peter met that with a strong enough scowl that John figured he’d last till the clinic.

“So you’re helping Talia?” Peter asked. “For what?”

“What?” John said. The road was better, in terms of sneaking around with a bloody, tar-smeared person in shotgun, but it was also swinging them wide of where they wanted to go, if John remembered the town right. It wasn’t a problem so long as they turned back in a couple blocks, but he wasn’t quite sure which block that would be.

“Well, what is it for? What’d she give up?” Peter said impatiently. “What are we getting dragged into this time? She’s always doing this, you know—oh, so powerful, she can full-shift, but somehow, instead of everybody paying tribute to _us_ , we always end up doing things for them.”

That one, John thought, spotting a familiar corner gas station. “Wait, I thought this started because you wanted Derek’s girlfriend to get bit without asking her first. Or checking whether she might have an allergic reaction to it.”

“I—how do you—who told you that?” Peter sputtered.

Something creaked. John looked over, then rolled his eyes. “Son, if I wanted to kill you, I would’ve done it already. All that’s going to do is give you gravel rash, and state you’re in, that’s not going to heal right.”

He took the turn and Peter stayed in the car. Still had a death-grip on the door handle, next John checked, but he wasn’t diving out.

“They broke up, by the way. So guess it’s just as well she didn’t get the bite—did you really want to get stuck with her in your pack? Because I’m not a werewolf, but from what I understand, once you’re in one, it’s not like you can get a divorce,” John added. The clinic was just a couple more blocks, and this part of town looked pretty quiet. Couple lighted windows in some of the buildings but hopefully that was just people closing up. “So shouldn’t you pick them a little better than just who your kid nephew’s dating? Does he even have a driver’s license yet? I just don’t know that they’re going to pick well at that age.”

“Well, he wouldn’t stop _seeing_ her,” Peter muttered. He sounded a little shell-shocked, under the annoyance. “Always sneaking out without telling anyone, and with hunters coming through, and then somebody’s got to find him and hope we don’t have to go to ground and if we’re going through all that trouble and _not_ killing her…”

“Yeah, she knows about werewolves, and no, you’re not killing her.” John saw something flash in the back of them and checked the rearview mirror, but thankfully, the car kept going instead of turning into their street. Good thing, since Peter’s sudden silence was getting tense. “Listen, I get worrying about being found out, but if you’ve already got hunters around, isn’t leaving fresh werewolf-killed bodies the last thing you want to do?”

“Well, I don’t know, having to count on other people’s good graces doesn’t seem like the best contingency plan either,” Peter said. “I don’t know if _you_ know what that’s like, not being in control of your own life.”

The edge to how he said that, it was uneven but was all the more genuinely cutting for that, the breaks letting the raw emotion show through that arch tone he kept trying to put on. And yet, for all of that, he said it like such a goddamn _young_ —John laughed. He wasn’t that thrilled with himself for it, but he couldn’t help it.

“Sit down, we’re here,” he said, as Peter stiffened up and twisted like he was maybe thinking of going for the door again. “Look, I—yeah, I do. I have a damn good idea of what that looks like, son, but you know what else makes you lose control of your life? Killing people. Killing people starts more bullshit than it ends. So you’d better have a good reason for it, or else when people ask you why you’ve just fucked up your whole life and the life of everybody you care about, you’re gonna be telling them it was because of your teenage nephew’s ex-girlfriend. You know how stupid that sounds? Well, I’ll tell you: it sounds _stupid_.”

They were in the parking lot, so John cut the engine. The parking lot was behind the building and pretty sheltered from view, but John did one last check just in case. It was clear, so he opened his door and got out one leg. Then he looked at Peter, since Peter wasn’t following.

Peter hadn’t passed out or anything, he was just staring at John again. “Are you…were you…is Talia dating you now?” he asked, slow and uncertain, his eyes wide.

“What?” John said.

“Nothing,” Peter said, and got out of the car.

He was looking a lot steadier, but by the time John got around to help him, he was listing pretty far over, and he looked happy to drop into a chair right inside the clinic. They’d come in the back way, John saw as he flipped on the lights. Nobody else in the building—no people, anyway. Just a couple dogs somewhere, barking a few times and then going silent.

“Need a second,” Peter grunted.

“Okay.” John ducked into the next room, saw a pallet of bottled water on the floor and got one bottle. He handed that over to Peter with Deaton’s phone. “Here, call your niece. I’m going back out for a second to get something from the car.”

Peter took that without questioning, and last John saw, he was gratefully downing the water. John didn’t actually need to get anything from the car, but he did need to make a call, and was going to do it from the car since he had no idea what the soundproofing in the clinic was like.

Melissa picked up immediately. _“Oh, my God, I was just going to—I kept meaning to, but I just—somebody keeps coming in and—”_

Her voice was hitching. Wasn’t exactly sobs, it didn’t have that kind of catch to it, but she definitely wasn’t in a good place. “Where are you?” John said, every nerve in his body going to ice.

_“The hospital. Scott’s still in surgery, they’re—oh, God, that’s the surgeon, here, you do this, I have to—”_ and then Melissa handed him off to somebody.

Somehow John knew. He hadn’t been born with anything, was just plain human, but he was already half-in the car when Mieczyslaw got on. _“Stiles is fine, but his friend was bitten by an alpha werewolf.”_

“You saw,” John snapped. “It’s not that you didn’t want to come, it’s you didn’t want to come with _us_.”

Mieczyslaw’s tone was even grimmer than usual. _“It did not happen like I saw, but this is not good. You should come.”_

John inhaled. Then just flung the phone into the seat beside him and slammed in the car key.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, so, minor nitpicking compared to all of the other TW stuff that bothers me, but utilities usually get turned off when people stop paying them.
> 
> Also, most things people hide behind aren't going to stop a bullet. TV Tropes has a great [section](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ConcealmentEqualsCover) on this.


	13. Now

“Cora’s still on Mom,” Derek reports. “She’s done with the tunnels and now they’re heading to the old factory. She says Mom’s calmed down a lot—John called her, she thinks?”

Chris is still right on Peter’s heels, and amusingly, seems to think he can pained-face his way into getting between Peter at the car. “Shouldn’t you be working out things with Stiles?” he asks. “Allison just texted, she says he’s not happy you ran out on him.”

“I already told him that,” Derek says, looking up from his phone with an annoyed face. “He just bought another deli platter. I don’t think he gives a shit.”

Peter takes his car keys out and clicks the dongle to unlock the doors. Then smiles in Chris’ face when the other man gives up on the subtle approach and just steps between him and the car. Smiles, slaps the keys against the center of Chris’ chest, and about-faces. “Is she calm because they made up, or calm because she’s decided she’s just going to deal with it first and wave it in his face second?”

“Uh,” Derek says, startling in place, eyes so wide that Peter could poke the whites with his nose-tip, if he wanted to lean that much more forward.

Instead, Peter back- and side-steps, and then goes around the other man. Not back to the blind—which already holds the twin, who comically thinks that sticking a fistful of coldcuts behind his back is going to hide them, and Braeden, who calmly continues to drop cherry tomatoes into a Ziploc—but around it and into the woods. Of course, Chris dogs his steps, cursing softly.

“Really, Chris, you’re the one who asked whether I knew what was up with Talia. I’m just giving you what you asked for,” Peter says. He purposefully takes the steeper side of the hillside, kicking back loose pebbles at every opportunity. 

“Oh, for God’s—Peter, look, this has gotten pretty fucking complicated even for this town, and—could you just, for one second, stop thinking about whatever goddamn thing you and Stiles have going—”

Derek doesn’t sound as if he’s following. Peter spares a moment to ponder whether his nephew’s exhibiting more of the unexpected canniness he displayed at Eichen House, then catches the sound of a dial-tone drifting back—no, no need to worry there. Just taking orders from someone else, which has always been more Derek’s speed.

“There’s no thing. Well, unless you’re talking about the fact that we’re in a long-term, mutually satisfying relationship, which seems like very shoddy detective work even for you,” Peter says. He feels a bit of rock break off under his left foot and helps it along, with relish. “Besides, Chris, if you’re going to use my sister to divert me from what’s going on, you can’t blame me for taking you up on it and—”

“Doing this bullshit dance with Stiles because now he’s going to come after you, and drag my daughter along with it?” Chris says. He grunts when the stone hits his shin—and it does hit, Peter smells the way the blood starts to well up under the skin—and then, without warning, he appears right beside Peter. “Goddamn it. You aren’t going to find Talia because you’re going to do shit about the Ghost Riders, Peter. You’re going so you two can work up something to drive John and Stiles crazy, and that’s not going to goddamn help anything.”

Peter flicks a look over him, with his skin and eyes glimmering silver like water under a full moon. “Well, if you’d bothered coming out to play earlier, maybe the Ghost Riders wouldn’t even be a factor. I don’t know why you keep pretending you’re still human. Your ex-wife’s considerably more useful in that department.”

In this form, Peter can’t read Chris’ heartbeat, but he hardly needs to so long as the man’s jaw clenches so obviously. “I didn’t ask you to go find your sister. I asked you if you knew what she was up to,” Chris grates out. “Because it sure as hell has nothing to do with the Ghost Riders.”

“No?” Peter says. He doesn’t stop walking.

“What the hell about them has to do with the old factory? Or women in black? Or did she not even get around to telling you about that?” Chris snaps.

Peter still keeps walking, but he’s not trying to chase Chris away now. He hates to admit it, but aside from his daughter’s love life, Chris generally doesn’t get concerned over nothing. “You’re the one who just said that was a run-of-the-mill ghost.”

“I said that Stiles said that, and when I went back to the factory after he’d exorcised it, I didn’t see anything that made me believe differently,” Chris says. The shimmer disappears from his skin, but Peter’s leaning on werewolf speed at this point and Chris is keeping up without any noticeable difference in breathing. “But Talia’s heading over there now, and John’s letting her.”

“Because it’s really the Ghost Riders he’s concerned with. If she wants to poke around that decrepit hellhole, that keeps her out of his way,” Peter says. 

Chris shakes his head. “If that was it, why would he tell you about the factory? And act like that was what’s been eating Stiles this whole time?”

“Because obviously, it is, and since John’s tied up with the Ghost Riders, he wants someone else to handle it. Hence why Talia and I are both being maneuvered back there,” Peter says, rolling his eyes. “Honestly, Chris, you’ve lived with him long enough. Don’t you know how he works by now?”

“Yeah, I have an idea. Which is why I’m saying I don’t think that’s it. At least it’s not all of it. Otherwise why the hell John would think sending you and Talia to the factory on your own is a good idea is beyond me,” Chris says, with enough force in it to make Peter take another, longer look at him.

Chris looks back, without any of the little resigned tics that, while probably rooted in sincerity, he also uses to hide his real opinions most of the time. If Peter had to admit it, which is a position that Peter works very hard to avoid being put in, he’d have to say that that was one area where the Argents trained the man correctly. Once Chris has a sense of something wrong, he won’t stop till he’s run it down, and that was true even before John brought him back from the dead. 

“Are you expressing worry about our emotional well-being?” Peter finally says.

That earns him a grimace. “One of these days I’m going to rent that bulldozer and just knock the place down, and hell with Scott’s dad. I’m tired of going out there.”

“So am I,” Peter says under his breath. Then, while Chris is busy trying to find the cracks in that, he starts to detour them. Not so much that they aren’t still heading in the general direction of the factory, but now their path will also cross one of the major hiking trails into the preserve. “I still think John is trying to distract us from something. He has to know Stiles has everyone up to date on Ghost Riders by now. So who’s watching him?”

“Allison was supposed to, but she got tangled up in whatever Stiles is running,” Chris says, with a barbed look as if Peter is not only supposed to manage his sister, but his life-mate as well. At least he’s more practical than his ex-wife, and keeps it out of the information he shares. “Jordan was doing it as long as John stayed in the office, but he’s got to stay put to deal with Rafael if he calls. Melissa’s tied up at the hospital, she said she’d have to go right back after she chewed John out—”

“She doesn’t know what’s going on here?”

Chris gives Peter a disbelieving look. “If she did, do you think you and I would be trying to hash this out?”

“Well, she might not know enough to say it in public, but she usually has an idea,” Peter says. Or starts to say, before something occurs to him. Then he does finish the thought, but he’s afraid there was enough of a lag in the middle that Chris will pick up on it. He does his best to throw out something else for the man to worry at. “So you don’t have anyone on him.”

“That was _Talia’s_ job, and then she just up and ran out here and—” At that point, Chris shuts his mouth and looks away from Peter.

“And you still somehow think I know what she’s up to,” Peter snorts. “Well, I still have no idea why she’s developed a vested interest in your extended lifespan.”

She’s never really explained it to Chris either, if the way needling at that can sometimes rile Chris enough for a fight is any clue. Sadly, this is not one of those days: Chris lets the muscle in his jaw tic again, then looks at Peter. “Is this really about the factory?”

“The factory?” Peter says.

“Don’t pretend, you just thought of something,” Chris says, leveling a cool stare at him. “And we’re still heading over there, so I’m not that far off. Peter, look—everything else aside, I don’t like how this is going. Nobody’s goddamn _died_ , but if nothing else, you and me know that isn’t the only way to measure the damage.”

“And I suppose this is where you give me the speech about how you’ve changed, and really we both have the same interests because we both want to protect our loved ones, and never mind that you had a hand in _why_ the factory is such a flashpoint around here,” Peter sighs. His phone buzzes in his pocket and he starts to reach for it, then stops himself. It buzzes twice more, then goes silent. Then changes over to the burr that means texts instead of calls.

“Well, if you want, I can run through it again, but we’ve both heard it,” Chris says. He lets them go a few more steps, then nods towards Peter’s pocket. “You really just going to let him build up like that?”

Peter smiles at him, with teeth. It’s never going to impress Chris, but with him, that’s not the point Peter ever tries to make. “Are you really giving me advice on Stiles?”

Chris presses his lips together. Then jerks his head away from Peter, glowering out at the woods. They walk along in silence for a while. Long enough that anyone else would have felt uncomfortable enough to make small talk, but Chris being Chris, he likely thinks the silence is a godsend.

“I get it’s about their family,” Chris suddenly says, just as they catch sight of the first trailhead. He glances at Peter, then rolls his shoulders impatiently. “It can’t be anything else, with how they’re acting. That’s what you thought too. But is it—is it—it doesn’t seem like it has to do with…just with what Stiles can do. They don’t get upset over that. So did…did…”

“Are you trying to ask whether I know if it’s something that happened to them?” Peter says.

“Well, it’s not my goddamn family for once, or else it wouldn’t be Talia John’s avoiding,” Chris snaps. Then looks like he regrets the lapse in temper for the briefest moment, before his expression goes stony again. “You know I wasn’t there—I wasn’t there with Gerard, Peter. You know that. You know that, even if you like to talk like you don’t, and if it was any other time I wouldn’t be arguing over you taking your pound of flesh because he was my goddamn father and I won’t deny it. But right now, I don’t think that’s what’s impor—”

“No, but you were there for John’s father,” Peter points out.

This particular trail runs back about two hundred yards to a small lot. The lot is unpaved and doesn’t even have gravel down; it’s meant more for off-road bikes and the occasional preserve service vehicle. Currently, it doesn’t contain either, at least as far as Peter’s nose can tell. And then he inhales again and now he can detect the scent and heartbeat of two people in the lot, as if someone had just whisked them out of the ether.

Magic, of course. Scott is the one who tries to announce them, only to get pushed aside by Stiles. Allison isn’t there—possibly diverted by her mother. Peter had been counting on her to distract her father, but when he looks over, Chris seems sufficiently enmeshed in trying to will Peter to death with his eyes that nothing more seems necessary there.

“ _Stiles_ doesn’t even bring that up anymore,” Chris snarls. His eyes have silvered over again, and a cold, mossy note’s crept into his scent, like a graveyard in winter.

“Well, he’s never talked much about his namesake, you know that,” Peter says. And then steps forward to meet the man in question, who’s just storming around the bend in the trail.


	14. Then

John had to explain werewolves to Melissa McCall in a hospital supply closet so small that she was half-sitting on a sterilizer and he had to hold a bucket of used syringes the whole time. It wasn’t really ideal, on top of the fact that her son had gotten mauled by a crazed alpha with bloody eye-sockets was why they were having this conversation in the first place. So he didn’t blame her when she punched his chest halfway through it, then grabbed his arm so tight that it left a bruise. Or when she just said that she had to get to her son and walked out of the closet without looking back.

He sure as hell didn’t blame _her_. But he didn’t really have the goddamn time to be thinking about blame anyway, since he had to find his own son.

When he’d left Stiles, the poor kid had been sitting outside Scott’s hospital room on the floor, knees up to his chest and arms around them, with Mieczyslaw standing next to him and glowering away anybody who tried to point out the lounge with empty chairs down the hall. Stiles was still there, in exactly the same position, though as John came up to him, he scrambled to his feet.

“Dad, Scott’s mom is in there. She’s trying to check him out and take him home,” Stiles said. His voice was hoarse, and he kept squinting his eyes to keep back tears. “I think if that’s gonna happen, that’s—we gotta sneak him—they’re not going to let him, and when he heals—”

“Okay, okay. It’s okay, we’ll figure it out. Melissa’s not going to have to do all of it,” John said, flicking his eyes over Stiles’ head to a nurse doing something with a gurney further down the hall. He hated having to think that way, would rather have just kept hugging his son, but he’d already slipped up today.

Stiles sensed it and stiffened. “Okay. Okay. What—what should I do? I don’t—Dad, I don’t—I didn’t see—”

“It’s okay. It’s not your job, Stiles,” John muttered, and then he pulled Stiles into his side and turned around and headed towards that lounge. “Look, just—here’s my phone, see what they’re saying on the news. We need to figure that out.”

That didn’t exactly brighten Stiles up, but it gave him a reason to not pay attention when John strong-armed Mieczyslaw into the corner of the room. “Does she understand?” was all Mieczyslaw said.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” John hissed. And then—then he couldn’t even detail all the ways that Mieczyslaw was goddamn crazy, because he was just that pissed off, the words weren’t even coming out. He stood there, jabbing his finger in the air, while nothing came out of his mouth except some stupid little croaking noises.

Mieczyslaw sighed. “I did not want to come.”

“Well, no, you never goddamn want to—” finally squeezed out of John’s throat. “You just—”

“I did not see. I did not _see_.” For a couple seconds, Mieczyslaw just looked meaningfully at John, doing his usual dour act. And then his hand snapped out and caught John by the wrist. “John. I do not choose when I see. You understand—you have to, because your son will be—”

“He’s goddamn crushed,” John said, trying to twist at his wrist. “That’s his best friend in there, and now the poor kid’s going to be a werewolf and we’re going to have to explain that and—”

For his age, Mieczyslaw’s grip was ridiculous. He had John’s wrist about level with their shoulders and he was moving a little with each yank, but his fingers weren’t loosening up. “You will not explain. You will leave, now, or else his friend will not live.”

“Well, you’re going to explain this bullshit for once. I’m a grown man, not some kid who has other people’s futures barging into his skull all the time,” John snapped.

“I am.” Mieczyslaw released John’s wrist. Then stood there, not even flinching at the finger that dove nearly into his left eye, as John stumbled in place. “I did not see that the alpha would attack your son’s friend until you had left.”

“Well, so why didn’t you call me?” John said. “I was—I was _here_ , and look, I appreciate the help in—in learning how this works for Stiles, but just because you know more doesn’t make him _your_ goddamn kid.”

“Because I saw you, too,” Mieczyslaw said. He didn’t even twitch at John’s tone, just kept plodding along with what he had to say. Sometimes John wanted to kill him just to get a rise out of him, and yeah, that didn’t make any sense, but that was what Mieczyslaw did to him. “I saw you, with the woman, and she needs to live.”

And sometimes John just wanted to kill him because _he_ didn’t make any sense. “Just because you saw that doesn’t mean I couldn’t have done something for Scott, and—to hell with this. I am so goddamn sick of trying to explain that to you, but you’re always just—acting like things have to go the way they have to go, and that’s the whole goddamn point of getting to see the future, and why else we’re going to put up with the shit it does to you and—hell with it. My son needs me more than you do.”

John turned on his heel and walked off. He collected Stiles from the lounge and took the kid down to the cafeteria—it was too late for anyone to be working check-out, but the vending machines had some yogurt. Not great yogurt, but it was marginally better than chips and candy and soda, so he got himself and Stiles both a cup.

“Stiles,” he said, after they’d seated themselves in the far corner of the empty room.

His son jumped so high that his knees banged against the underside of the table. Then slumped over, trying to hide his wince. “I’m okay, Dad. I mean, I wasn’t the one who just got mauled by an alpha werewolf.”

“Yeah, no, you’re not, and…listen. _Listen_ to me, Stiles,” John said, reaching over and taking Stiles by the shoulder. He was coming on too strong, he could tell by the way his son’s eyes immediately widened. He wasn’t good at this sort of thing, never had been; Claudia had been the one with the soft touch. But he was who was left, goddamn it, and he was going to tell his son what he needed to hear. “Just because you see things that could happen to people doesn’t mean—it doesn’t mean it’s your fault when they happen.”

Stiles snorted. “Well, okay, Dad, but I didn’t even see—”

“That’s the goddamn point, Stiles. You didn’t see it. It wasn’t your fault that you didn’t see it. And I know you’re just going to nod at me and try like hell to figure out how to _make_ yourself see it the next time, but that’s not how it works and you’re just—if you think like that you’re going to kill yourself,” John said. Still trying too hard. He knew his son, and just yelling had never put Stiles off anything, ever. Not if Stiles decided it really mattered, and God, he’d never wished that his son would be more selfish than he was wishing right now. “You’re going to turn yourself inside-out, and I can’t—you know, I can’t stop you. Not if you really want to do that. But I can’t just watch you go that way and not say something—I don’t want you to be like—”

“Granddad?” Stiles said skeptically.

He’d taken the word right out of John’s mouth. And yet, with it out there and hanging in the air…it felt wrong. This whole line of talk felt wrong, sat wrong with John, and he wasn’t sure why. He took a breath, both because he needed it and to buy him some time with his son, who was sitting across from him but who John could feel slipping farther away every second.

“No, your mom,” John said, breathing out. Then he stared at his hands. He hadn’t planned that. At least, he hadn’t thought he had, but…he breathed in again, then out. He hated to admit it, but now things seemed to fit. “She didn’t want this, you know that. And it’s not the same, but it is. She…she fought her whole life against having the ability you have, and I didn’t really get that till—I didn’t get it, Stiles. I didn’t see it, didn’t see a single sign of it, she hid all of that from me. She didn’t let me know—she didn’t let me _help_. She didn’t let anybody help. And…and now I don’t know if I could have. She didn’t let me find out, and I…don’t get me wrong, I loved your mother. But I’m…I’m mad at her, too.”

“I know.” Stiles said that so low that John thought he’d imagined it at first. But when John looked up, Stiles hunched his shoulders the way he always did after saying things he thought would get him into trouble. “I know, and I’m…I’m kind of, too. I…you know, she said I was trying to kill her. At the end.”

John stiffened. “What?”

“I don’t think it was—was a vision, or anything like that. I think she—it took me a while to figure out what she was saying. It was in Polish, and you know I wasn’t really big on learning that, not till we started living with Granddad, and…but she just yelled it over and over at me, and she tried to get at me one time, so I kind of guessed. You know.” Stiles snickered hollowly and wouldn’t look up at John. “I was thinking—I think she meant it like, she knew I’d get this too, and she wouldn’t be able to keep it under wraps anymore. Like I was killing her, the her that could hide this.”

“She loved you,” John said.

“I know, but she also really hated herself, didn’t she? At least that part of her,” Stiles said. He glanced up at John, then poked aimlessly at his empty yogurt cup. “I don’t want to hate this, Dad. This is a thing—this is my thing, we’re figuring it out, and sometimes it sucks but I don’t want to hate it. I don’t want to hate me.”

It wasn’t really grieving that John had never done, he suddenly realized. He had grieved, and he still missed his wife. It was being mad at her he’d never worked through; they’d just left and he’d left all that parked in this town. “You’re not going to. I’m your dad, all right? And I’m saying it’s not going to happen.”

“Yeah, thanks,” Stiles said, and there was a hint of teenage trouble in the way his mouth twisted. But his eyes were grateful. “But Dad, if I’m not going to—I get what you’re saying, that I can’t just obsess over why I can’t see what I want to see. But I still—I have to know I’m not just—this isn’t just some—some _handicap_. I’m not—I’m not _disabled_. Does that make sense? Because I need it to make sense. I need to know that if I’m gonna see things, I can do things—I can use it to do things. And if I’m not gonna see things—that we can still make sure nobody gets hurt.”

“Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense.” John still had his hand on Stiles’ shoulder. He wanted to pull his son over into a hug, but settled for giving Stiles a light shake. 

“So I need to know more than just how to deal with the headaches. Scott’s a werewolf now, and if Granddad and I are both seeing things happening in this town, I need to know why. It’s got to be more than coincidence, right? It’s too weird not to be,” Stiles said, looking up, earnest expression on. “We’ve got to be able to dig up something.”

“Well, we’ll look,” John said, because much as he loved his son, he didn’t want to lie to him.

It was enough for Stiles, which was surprising up until Stiles suddenly cut loose with a yawn so wide his jaw seemed to unhinge. He could get like that, running a million miles in a second and then dropping half-dead on his feet, and he’d been through a hell of a lot in the last few hours.

The cafeteria wasn’t the place for a nap, so John packed them up and was headed back upstairs when they ran into Melissa. She flinched at John, then twisted away to stifle Stiles, who’d immediately broken out into cracked-voice apologies, in a tight hug. She didn’t flinch about that, John was relieved to see. But then she stood Stiles back and even though she was ordering him right into the nurses’ shift room for a nap, the way she was angling herself away from John raised a red flag.

She walked with John till they got Stiles tucked into a cot, and then backed out of the room with a fond smile on her face. Then, soon as the door was shut, she twisted around and there wasn’t a drop of fondness on her face. “I need to talk to you.”

John grimaced and nodded. 

Melissa looked at him for a long moment. Her hair was bunched up on one side, like she’d been grabbing it over and over, and her eyes were red-rimmed, but for all that, she was fully aware. “I think you need to leave town,” she said.

“I…yeah, you deserve that,” John said after a stunned moment. “But…look, we should—”

“Oh, Jesus, John, I’m not—I’m not saying it’s your fault,” Melissa said, a note of rough laughter entering into her voice. She wrapped her arms around herself, then pumped her hands up and down the biceps. “You didn’t bring that asshole to town—you weren’t even the one who got him so wild he was running around attacking innocent people. I just mean—you need to leave. It’s not your fault but my son’s—he’s got a lot to deal with now, we both do, and I just think—”

“Somebody has to explain this to you,” John interrupted. “Look, I get it, I’ve been you—”

Melissa looked up sharply. “Oh, really? You’ve had your kid in a hospital bed? Because from what you said, you got to ease Stiles into it. I don’t have that luxury. And explaining it to me—look, what I know is now there’s a whole world of people who’ll be coming after Scott, for no reason besides who and what he is, and they all know you too.”

“Yeah, I know, but I can keep them off,” John said. “Look, you don’t know, not really. It can get bad.”

“Oh, I think I have an idea. I’ve seen some of the bodies that go through the morgue, and maybe I didn’t know back then, but I’m putting the pieces together now, believe me,” Melissa said angrily. She started to step past John, then sighed and moved back and looked at John again. “I’m trying not to…I’m trying to do what’s best for Scott here, John. He’s had a lot to deal with lately, with my divorce just getting finalized and Rafael just not even wanting to see him, and he—from what I know right now, he needs to focus on this. And you just are bringing in so much else, just by what you do, and…I just don’t need that around Scott. He and Stiles are still going to be friends, I’m not cutting that off. I’m just…asking if you can leave for a while.”

“I…” John shut his mouth. He twisted half-around, mostly because he owed it to her to say something, but couldn’t think of anything worth her hearing, and he had no goddamn other thing he could do. “I—we could—”

“I thought about it, I think this _is_ the best way to help Scott. I can get him out of the hospital, I have enough favors I can call in, and…honestly, I’m not sure we’ll stay in town either. My cousin’s got a big ranch-house upstate, we might just go and stay with him for a while,” Melissa said. She wasn’t angry with him now so much as sorry, sorry and tired and mostly just wishing she didn’t have to have this conversation. Which he could relate to. “Besides, your father-in-law’ll be in town, he says. I can always ask him, he’s already offered.”

“He did,” John said flatly.

Melissa frowned. Then she started to ask something, but Mieczyslaw walked up on them right then. “Your son is awake,” he told Melissa.

Her eyes widened. Then she pushed past John with a hurried apology. He let her, because it wasn’t her fault, and then he turned on his asshole father-in-law. “So you can’t just fuck with Stiles now? You’ve got to fuck with his best friend’s mother too?”

“I saw you with the woman, and she died,” Mieczyslaw said, with a slight tic of his head at the hallway where Melissa had just gone.

After a moment, John found his voice. “You meant her. Not Talia.”

“I have seen nothing of the Hales, John. Only you and her, and if you stay, you will be responsible for her death. She needs to live. She will be important here,” Mieczyslaw said gravely. 

“You are such a goddamn son of a _bitch_ ,” John spat out. Then he twisted on his heel. He walked away, but only got a couple yards before his common sense got the better of him and he came back. “Jesus Christ.”

“I came here and I looked for her, because I did not know how you would think of her. You seemed close in what I saw. But it has nothing to do with your marrying my daughter, it is only about her living,” Mieczyslaw went on. He’d paused and waited for John to come back, but you couldn’t tell from his tone. “I did not see the alpha who attacked her son, but I know without having to see that he will be back. That kind is. I regret not being able to kill him.”

“Well, maybe Talia will get him,” John muttered, rubbing at the side of his face. Hell, he was tired now. He could only be so mad at so many people at one time, and he thought he’d just hit his limit. “Jesus, Miec—”

“She is right. You will attract more attention than I will, with your government work. People who know me know they cannot go through others to get to me,” Mieczyslaw said. He paused. “I have told her that I am retired, and that I have not done the work you did in several years.”

John snorted. “Melissa’s not stupid. She’s upset over Scott now, but she’ll see through that as soon as she gets a second to catch her breath.”

“I am not going to follow her, John. I will answer her questions, but if she leaves this place, I will stay.” Mieczyslaw shrugged. “I hope she does. I think that will be better for all of you. This Talia, she sounds too interested in Stiles, and if the McCalls stay, she will learn about Scott.”

“She’s just looking out for her family, too,” John said, a little too sharply.

“I will not hurt her unless she strikes first,” Mieczyslaw said, those craggy brows of his rising.

John gritted his teeth and didn’t say anything. He didn’t really know Talia, and she _had_ been too interested in Stiles, even if he could understand why she would be. He just—he wasn’t thinking straight either, about what he needed to care about. “I’m not making Stiles stop talking to Scott.”

“You should not,” Mieczyslaw said.

Nothing after that. Though why John would expect more from the man at this point…John grimaced to himself and started to turn away. He needed to dig more out of Mieczyslaw, especially if he had to now pry Stiles out of this town, but he just wasn’t up for it right now.

Hell, and now he was thinking of leaving as a certainty. He shouldn’t—he poked at his resentment at the other man, trying to get it to flare into ironclad determination, but he was just—

“My daughter paid a high price to hide her power,” Mieczyslaw abruptly said. He was still standing there, but his expression had…he never softened, not really, but he looked as if he did not like what he was saying, and not just because he disagreed with it. He looked like maybe he had regrets. “It had nothing to do with the start of her disease. But the end…she told your son he was killing her, because in her eyes he was. If she had told him the things he needed to know, he could have helped her. But she did not, because she wanted to hide herself more than she wanted him to see.”

“What the hell did you do to her?” John said.

He shouldn’t have. It was harsh. Even at her angriest, Claudia had never said her father was anything less than loving; they just hadn’t agreed on how she should live her life, and neither of them were willing to compromise about that. 

Mieczyslaw didn’t flinch. “I do not know,” he said. His voice roughened. “I have asked this over and over, and I do not know. I told her, when it was too bad—I did not like what she was doing, but I told her—I told her, if she needed it, I would help. And she never asked. I do not know why.”

They looked at each other till John couldn’t look anymore. He dropped his head and rubbed at his eyes, then straightened himself. Of course Mieczyslaw hadn’t moved an inch, and John just…he couldn’t deal with the man. Or this town, or all the ghosts Claudia and her decisions had left in it. Selfish as hell, he knew, but he’d thought they had laid her to _rest_ , and he was so goddamn wrong about that.

Yeah, he thought, walking back into the room with his son. He looked down at Stiles for a couple seconds, at the slackness of his son’s body and the shadows under his eyes that were visible even in the darkened room. They had to figure this out, and it wasn’t going to happen here. 

They were leaving.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I generally appreciate how consistently supportive of Scott Melissa is, but the more badass she is later in the series, the more initial scenes right after she found out about werewolves seem wildly OOC. I can get being shocked, but sneaking around looking terrified because Scott looked kind of gnarly in the face on the same night she thought he'd gotten _fatally shot_ and then found out that wasn't true?
> 
> Also, supportive is better than the usual teen-show trope of making the parents the enemy, but you can be that and still call out other people for depending on a teenage boy with no training of any kind to save the day. Scott does volunteer himself, but nobody reality-checks him either. Which, again, is so systematic that I don't blame any one character. These are fictional people, y'all, they can't help that TW can't see characterization as a separate element from plot device. You can't hold canonical characters accountable in that kind of situation; you can only ask yourself, as I do regularly, why the show producers seem to think this kind of messaging is commercially appealing, and why they are apparently right enough to have kept TW going as long as they did.
> 
> I have a whole other rant about how guilt and shame and accountability and realistically portraying a well-intentioned bad judgment call is way more complex than TW ever wants to get into, but if you've read this far, you know where I come down there anyway.


	15. Now

“Peter, you lying liar!” Stiles says, stabbing his finger wildly at everything in the woods besides Peter himself. He stalks up, flannel flapping all around him, at a speed that makes Peter stop immediately in case the other man’s so busy developing his rant of grievances that he overshoots. And then he abruptly hauls himself up, so that they end up looking at each other well beyond Peter’s average lunging range. “You said you were okay!”

“I did not actually say that,” Peter says. “You assumed, but those words never actually came out of my mouth.”

Stiles rears back to contradict Peter, pointing finger arching down as if he’s considering driving it through the crown of Peter’s head…and then rocks back. He’s upset, but he’d have to be considerably more emotionally disturbed than this for that comprehensive memory of his to not kick in.

“Peter,” Chris grunts under his breath. “You sure—”

“Hey! Hey, oh, we weren’t—we weren’t sure if you’d be coming this way or not,” Scott says, jogging up to them. He looks disappointed, but it’s tinged with nerves, not anger, and his posture as he comes to stand by Stiles is protective. “Derek let us know you were going to do the food drop instead of—”

“Where’s Allison?” Chris snaps, glowering at Scott.

Scott looks over, hesitating, a very specific mix of embarrassment and sympathy and general discomfort on his face, and Peter can smell the exact moment when the anger in Chris’ smell crests and then tips sharply into bitter sadness.

“Um, her mom…” Scott waves his hand uselessly. “She came by and said she needed Allison for something and it couldn’t wait. It’s just for a couple hours, and I could still come with Stiles, so Allison and me figured—”

“Can you just _say_ you’re mad?” Stiles suddenly spits out. He kicks at the leaf-litter, then slouches back and gives Peter a narrow-eyed look. “Look, I get you are, but if you won’t say it, if you just—you’re just going to stand there and smile and let me feel you up, how am I supposed to know? Just say it, would you?”

He honestly thinks he has a right to lecture—before Peter can help himself, he’s taken a step forward. He’s aware that his movements are far too quick, too violent, and that Scott and Chris have abandoned their ridiculous little sideshow to watch his hands and feet, but he is _angry_. He is mad at Stiles, and he thinks he has every right to be.

“Well, you obviously do know I am, or you wouldn’t have gone through so much trouble to set this up as sympathetically as you can,” Peter snaps. “‘Oh, my father’s going hero again, I have to help him, I just didn’t tell you because I was so busy catching up on what he’s doing’—give me a little credit, Stiles. At least lie to me like you think I’m an actual threat, and not just someone who’ll sit back and buy nonsense.”

“What—what the _hell_ , Peter?” Stiles says, going pale. His arms have dropped and his fists are clenching against his hips, while beside him, Scott’s got one arm limply raised as if to grab him. “I _am_ helping Dad, because there are actual fucking _Ghost Riders_ kidnapping people—”

“Not really in the knocker family after all, I see your usual sterling analytical skills have finally kicked in, after Scott _and_ Derek flagged that to me—”

“—Talia’s going to end up killing somebody because she can’t just wait _two seconds_ for us to figure out how they got here—”

“My sister wouldn’t kill so many people if you and your father just left messages whenever you leave town, so we don’t think you’ve been _murdered_ ,” Peter throws at him.

“Well, we wouldn’t have to just up and leave if you really understood how this works!” Stiles shouts back at him. “You don’t know! You think you do, you think you know me _so_ well, you have no fucking _idea_ what it’s like and your family’s always in my fucking _head_ —”

And then Stiles whirls on his heel and marches off. He doesn’t look back.

Scott does, though he’s side-stepping to keep up with Stiles at the same time. Oddly, he looks at Peter first, as if he’s honestly wondering about Peter’s reaction and not just trying to guard against Peter. Then he gives Chris a briefer look, and then turns around and hurries back up to Stiles, who’s going so fast that even when he trips, the momentum alone carries him back upright.

“So did that go as planned?” Chris asks.

Peter unsheathes his claws. Then pulls them in, curling his hand into a fist. He breathes in and out, till the traces of Stiles in the air go stale, and then he twists around to face the other way.

“I’m not asking because I goddamn enjoyed that—that was rough to see, even for me. Even with our families’ history,” Chris says, though he sounds more than a little annoyed that Peter is not automatically appreciative of his pity. He’s still sensible enough to follow behind and at a tangent so Peter would have to take more than one step to attack him. “I’m asking because I know you did that on purpose, but I can’t fig—I know you, Peter. I know him like that isn’t what you want, I’ll give you that much credit.”

“Why are you asking, Chris?” Peter finally says, since it doesn’t appear that the man’s going to get this go. He could shake Chris off his trail, he supposes, but…he needs to be angry for that. Angry, or at least feeling malicious, and right now he can’t really work up either feeling.

He’s tired, he thinks. Sometimes he wishes he wasn’t who he is.

“Because I don’t want it to go like this either. John’s not any better, you know—he loses his temper over the same things, just doesn’t show it like Stiles,” Chris says after a moment. “We need to figure this out. You and me, at least, since Melissa can’t get out of work—”

“You know, if I were Melissa McCall, I would take work over this,” Peter muses. “She can’t possibly enjoy surrogate-mothering that much.”

“Well, it’s you and me, or it’s your sister, because all I’m going to hope for with Victoria is she just stays out of it too,” Chris says. He keeps pace with Peter for a few minutes. “What did you think he was going to tell you?”

For a moment, Peter contemplates simply leaving Chris behind. And then he sighs, because damn the man for always having a point, and he slows enough so that he’s not crooking his neck to talk behind himself. “What he did end up telling me—that this isn’t really about ghosts or Ghost Riders, and they’re just what he’s using as an excuse.”

“So it _is_ his family,” Chris says. “You think it’s his mother? Or his grandfather? I figured if John was going off too, it couldn’t just be his visions.”

Peter presses his lips together and says nothing. The woods are getting denser, and he’s starting to have to reach down and push the brush out of the way—he briefly regrets not changing into less expensive clothing for this—so he has a decent reason for not carrying on the conversation, besides just not wanting to discuss this with an Argent.

“I’m not trying to score points, you know,” Chris says, because the man can’t ever settle for the decent thing.

“Well, _I’m_ not trying to bond over the fact that we’re both sleeping with Stilinskis,” Peter snaps back. “It’s one thing to coordinate with an actual enemy breathing down our necks, and another to—”

“I tried to talk to John last week and he kept putting me off, so finally I had to stake out the hospital psych ward till he showed up to check on one of the Ghost Rider abductees,” Chris goes on, with barely a pause. He’s so annoying in how he routinely refuses to take the bait. “Got him to admit he’d had to actually go into that limbo space the Riders use to get somebody back, and I think he was about to own up that he’d seen something in there, but then your sister blew up at us.”

“Why on earth would she do that, when you’d picked up that something was wrong with him _last_ week, hadn’t told her, and had just gone off to corner John?” Peter snorts. “Of course that doesn’t look _at all_ like a backsliding Argent.”

That finally earns him a couple tics in Chris’ jaw muscles, but Chris still doesn’t raise his voice. “She could’ve stopped being mad at me long enough to explain why the hell she thinks this is about a woman in black. Claudia’s laid to rest. John checks every year, and I check the day after him.”

“And people call _me_ obsessed,” Peter says, shaking his head. A scratching noise in the distance makes him cock an ear, but it resolves into passing wildlife. “Why do you not think it’s a woman?”

“I didn’t say I thought it was one. I wasn’t going to guess genders till I had more to go on, because all I’ve got so far is the Riders showed John something that spooked him, and it might be filtering down to Stiles,” Chris says in an irritated tone. “What’s Talia seen that makes her think it’s a woman?”

“Oh, just—” Talia, two feet behind, waits for them to finish stumbling around to face her. “A little redheaded banshee. Nothing much, you know. It might not be a real lead. I’m still looking into it.”

Chris jerks stiffly at his coat, which had gotten rucked up when he’d startled. “Seriously?”

“Well, Chris, if you’re going to keep that habit of sneaking into my house, I’m going to keep my habit of sneaking up in my woods,” Talia says, smiling poison-sweet at him. She has dirt under her nails, and it doesn’t smell just of the tunnels in the preserve—there’s a metallic note Peter only ever associates with the factory. “Cora, dear, you can go home now. I’ll deal with Peter from here.”

A muffled ‘thank God’ emanates from a bush about fifty yards away. Peter turns just in time to see the soles of Cora’s sneakers flash white in the growing dark. Then turns back to Chris giving Talia a disgusted look.

“I didn’t sneak in, I used the front door and the goddamn key. I just didn’t talk to you before I left,” Chris mutters.

“Sneaking,” Talia confirms cheerfully. “Well, all right, since we’ve all finally…oh, honestly, Peter. I told you to meet me here hours ago, and if you’re going to take your sweet time about it, then I reserve the right to embarrass you. You’re lucky I waited till Stiles left.”

Peter glares at her. Talia being Talia, she takes the implied promise of murder as a sign of affection and helps herself to his shoulder. When he tries to shrug her off, she loops her arm around _both_ his shoulders and then starts pulling him along, with his only consolation being that Chris gets an even more demeaning chin-jerk to follow.

“Lydia told you something?” Chris asks. He’s clearly reluctant, but even more clearly can’t help himself.

“Indeed,” Talia says.

“And of course you took her at face value, and never mind that she’s both Stiles’ other best friend and also a pathological liar about him,” Peter says.

Talia rolls her eyes. “No, Peter, I listened carefully and then did some fact-checking in John’s office so I could figure out what was the exact opposite of what she wanted me to do, because unlike you, I don’t let jealousy cloud my judgment about that girl.”

Peter finally worms out from under her arm, and then feels something brush roughly against his ear. He reaches up and pulls out a twig; he must have swung into a branch when she’d come up on them. Annoyed, he flicks it away. “I hardly have reason to be jealous, considering Stiles and I are coming up on our second anniversary and she’s had how many idiots on her arm in that time? Five?”

“No, no, I meant the second part, where she’s a better liar than you,” Talia says.

A snort comes from behind them, though when Talia and Peter whip around, Chris’ face is completely expressionless. Talia stares pointedly till he drops his eyes, and only then turns around. She retucks her arm through Peter’s. “Well, do either of you want to help with this or not?”

“We’re not going to the factory,” Chris says, a slight lift of surprise in his voice.

“No, we’re not,” Talia says. Despite her apparent nonchalance, she’s watching Peter out of the corner of her eye, and she doesn’t go on till he finally gives her a nod. Considerate of her, he supposes, although she could also just not bring Chris along. “We’re going to the old house.”

Chris sucks in his breath. Then Peter feels the man’s gaze burning on the back of his skull. “Why?” he asks Talia, refusing to turn. “That had nothing to do with either Stiles or his father. They showed up after it was too late.”

“They were too late,” Talia says, her voice abruptly flattening. “But Mieczyslaw wasn’t.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stiles/Peter is an attractive pairing in part because they're two characters who could really understand each other on levels that other characters wouldn't. Of course, the corollary to that is their fights are going to be pretty spectacular. Fine line between charming banter and psychological attacks, sometimes.


	16. Then

Stiles gave John ten kinds of hell for dragging him away from the McCalls and Beacon Hills, and John couldn’t hold any of it against him. He’d tried to explain why, but Stiles just kept asking why couldn’t they stay and just _not_ do whatever Mieczyslaw had seen them do, and save Melissa that way.

“Because she doesn’t _want_ us around,” John had finally snapped one night, just too dog-tired to put up a front anymore.

He’d regretted it as soon as he’d said it. Putting it that way wasn’t fair to Melissa, and he could tell it’d just stabbed right through Stiles, but his son had immediately shut up, and in the silence that had followed, John couldn’t find the right words. He didn’t want to fuck it up again, and so he told himself he’d take it up in the morning once he’d rested.

Except they never did. Stiles was a completely different person the next day, poring over travel sites and online messageboards for interesting places to stop along the way, peppering John with questions about where they were going now. John had ended up reaching back out to some of his government contacts for help; he wasn’t going to go back into that line of work, not with the hours it’d forced him to keep, but he wasn’t going to turn down the help going private. They’d gotten him a short-term contract with a government contractor up in Oregon, a construction company with what sounded like multiple hauntings. Enough to keep John employed and in one place for at least a school semester, since he still wanted to try and give Stiles a little stability. Stiles seemed to be into it.

John didn’t believe that either, but he didn’t see that he had any choice except to let it go and just keep an eye out for a chance to make it up to Stiles. If he confronted his son now, he had a feeling there was more than a decent chance Stiles would just pack a bag and run back to Beacon Hills. Bu if he just could keep Stiles with him a little longer, he’d figure something out.

So they settled into the new town—John made a point of getting Stiles Internet to start emailing Scott first thing—and John went about trying to reinvent his career for the third time in his life. That part went okay: turned out the area had a fair amount of supernatural issues people were willing to pay him to handle, and not all of them worked for the government. Stiles enrolled in the local school, tested high enough to skip two grades, and spent a lot of time holed up in his room researching something he wouldn’t really tell John about.

“It’s just looking into what I said, about making the visions something I can use to help people,” was all he’d say when John asked. “I remember what you said, and I’m not gonna burn out. But this is important, Dad.”

“Okay, just let me know if you need help,” was what John always ended up saying back, while fighting back a wince.

Stiles never asked for help, and John just kept tabs on the amount of magic coming out of his room and making sure Stiles wasn’t actually raising literal hell in there. That and making damn sure that anything supernatural stayed the hell away from their house.

John was coming back from doing exactly that one night when some jackass tried to hold him up from behind. He was already running late, and knew damn well that Stiles knew whenever he sneaked out of the house and did _not_ need his son mustering up a ghost mob to find him when he didn’t come home. So he put up his hands in the air when ordered to, and let the jackass plant a hand between his shoulderblades and shove him up against his car, and even let the jackass’ back-up find their way out from behind the trees on the other side. And then he took both of them down.

Much to his surprise, they weren’t government. “You sure?” he asked, pinching his phone between his shoulder and his ear so he could re-riffle through the inside pockets of the jackass’ coat. “Not even—”

 _“Not even disavowed status,”_ Stiles said, keyboard clattering away in the background. _“I mean, I’m coming up with regular ol’ gun permits but that’s it, and are you sure you don’t want me to come out? Maybe it’s a glamour on top of a fake ID.”_

“Kid, I checked that,” John said. He let the coat drop from his hands, then cocked his head and looked again. He’d thought the jackass under it was out cold, and it hadn’t actually _moved_ …but at this point his instincts were tuned to other things too. “Look, I’ll wrap up here, we can double-check in the morning. Be there in an hour, you’d better—”

 _“Okay, okay, if you really do get home by then. I don’t have class tomorrow, you know,”_ Stiles muttered, that put-upon note coming through crystal-clear. His keyboard clattering hadn’t even slowed. And then he breathed in a little, and it sounded kind of like it hooked on something on the way down. _“Watch out, okay?”_

John frowned—at this point Stiles knew when to worry and when not to worry about him—but just repeated he’d be back in an hour. Then he hung up and looked at the man under his knee. No movement. No speeding-up in the breath there. No magic tingling in the air, and he could still see the man’s hands where he’d zip-tied them to a half-rusted metal staple run into the floor of the abandoned garage they were in.

“You really just private-sector?” John finally said, with a nudge of his knee against the man’s spine. “You know they cut the bounty program for this kind of gremlin, right?”

Nothing. Still, John was getting a distinct vibe of confusion, like they weren’t talking the same language. Given the gear he’d found in their bags, that seemed highly unlikely, but for some reason this felt like a sincere vibe.

He pulled his knee back, one hand on his gun. When nothing changed, he scooted over and checked the zip-ties, and then got up to check the other one. That one really was out for the count, and not going to come round anything in the near future—John ended up whistling a cantrip to check whether he’d cracked a skull, but he wasn’t getting any red blotches showing internal bleeding. “You can’t honestly be actual hunters,” he said, getting back up onto his feet. “There’s no money, nobody’s died, this is out of the way of any bigwig in the area I can think of, and it’s too peanuts for thrill-seeking. Don’t you have better things to do?”

Nothing.

John sighed, then considered what he could do with two noncivilians that’d still let him get home in the promised time-frame. He wasn’t sure how they’d gotten out here, since a quick ten-yard radius check didn’t turn up any vehicles. If they’d come out on foot, he had no idea where their car could be, and the Jeep wasn’t really designed for stashing bodies out of sight. He usually rented an SUV when he was on a job where he thought that might come up.

“I guess I could just call my local fed contact,” John mused aloud. “She’ll give me hell, and I was trying not to end up on their books again, but on the other hand, I can think of two federal regulations right off that your gear violates—”

Jackass rolled onto his side and squinted up at John. He was surprisingly old—well, not old, he looked like John’s generation. Though that was a lot older than John would’ve guessed for somebody pulling this kind of stunt. “I think we have some crossed lines here.”

“No shit,” John said. He picked up one of their bags, tilting it to get a good look all around it. A little large for your standard duffel, but the fabric was good and thick and wasn’t going to betray suspicious outlines at a traffic stop. 

“We’re not government, and not looking for government,” the man went on. His shoulders tensed slightly when John put the bag into the back of the Jeep. “I think we just had our business run across your business by accident.”

The second bag was smaller, and had all of the fancy electronics in it. When John lifted it, the clinking noises made the man repeatedly twitch. “I think it’s kind of hard to call a gun to the back of the head an accident.”

“Well, mistaken identity,” the man said, still grimacing. He pushed himself up on his elbows, legs curling under him. The flap of his jacket drew John’s eye and he immediately went still; John dropped the bag and was over there in one stride, grabbing at the man’s wrist. The man twisted sharply away, then hissed as the zip-ties cut him. “Wait—wait, I wasn’t going for—”

“Fine, I won’t shoot you, but I don’t think you can blame me for getting a little nervous about leaving it on you,” John snorted, yanking out the razor blade that’d been half-peeking from the man’s jacket-cuff. He pushed the man back down flat, then ran his fingers along the inside of the other cuff. “Anyway, mistaken identity’s even less believable, since I don’t know who the hell would put you on me if they weren’t at least freelancing for—”

“We’re not goddamn _government_ , we’ve got some goddamn pride in the work,” the man spat out.

The other cuff was clean. John sat back on his heels, his gun still out, and looked the man over. Glanced down briefly at the razor when he felt a coating on it—light, not tacky, kind of lacquer—and then he took out his wallet and tucked the razor in it for Stiles to puzzle over later. That razor hadn’t come up the first time he’d searched the man, and the coating was probably part of it. Something for Stiles to puzzle over and maybe that’d keep his son from digging too much into why John had been out here in the first place.

“I meant we work without government orders,” the man said after a moment, eyeing John. “Protecting the innocent’s been the family code for generations. No disrespect to government contractors, but the government’s just not why we do it.”

“Sure, everyone has their reasons,” John said. “Also, I take it I’m not innocent in the eyes of this code of yours?”

“Like I said, I think there was a mix-up,” the man said. “We weren’t looking for trouble.”

John looked at him. Then at the other hunter. Then back at him. “Well, now that you’ve said you were looking for somebody and didn’t just tell me this was some training trip gone sideways, I’m gonna have to ask.”

That would have been a better cover story, said the man’s expression. But to his credit, he just needed a couple seconds to think it over, and then he sighed. “I’m Chris Argent, and my family’s been hunting werewolves for—”

Shit. “Yeah, name rings a bell,” John said before he could help himself. 

Chris paused. “I have to ask, have you met somebody from my family before?”

“Let’s get to who you’re looking for,” John said. That firearms-dealer license must be under a cover name, he thought. He’d have to recheck everything—he couldn’t do that from the road, he’d had to beg some favors again. Well, he could call that in while he was driving home, which left pulling Stiles out of school for first thing in the morning, and—

“Was it my father?” Chris sighed, his shoulders slumping. “Gerard? Because look, we all know about him, and we’re doing everything we can to find him and if we’d been in charge of the body disposal, we would’ve—”

“What?” John said.

Chris blinked. “Oh, wait, did you—you know somebody killed him, right?”

“I—but why are you still looking for him?” John said. “Oh, wait, so you mean his body—”

“ _No_ , I mean him. Because I guess you haven’t heard, but he tried to pull some—long story short, he did the kind of thing that means you’d better deal with the body right, only that didn’t happen, and if you met him before he died, now he’s even _worse_ ,” Chris said, hunching his shoulders and generally looking and sounding like somebody used to regularly picking up a family member from the drunk tank. He contorted himself a bit so he could rub at one eye, then looked up at John. “Look, anyway, we aren’t down here for him. We’re here for a Mieczyslaw Stilinski, and that’s not that common a last name, so I’m sorry and I guess some kind of…”

“You have two seconds to explain what the hell is going on, and why you’re after my son,” John said.

To give him credit, Chris held his composure just fine with a gun pressed to his forehead. He did take his time about answering John, but he was mostly using that time to give John another once-over, and also to do some quick calculating in his head. “Your kid is how old?”

“Why?” John snapped.

Irritation flicked a couple creases across Chris’ brow. He kept his voice steady. “I’m looking for a guy who’s past sixty. So Mieczyslaw, I didn’t think it was that common of a first name either…”

 _Shit_. “It’s not,” John said, while biting back half a dozen curses.

Chris looked John over again. “This the kind of name that runs in the family?”

John normally wasn’t the type who worried about his trigger finger, but his hand jerked before he could help it. He let that curse out, and made himself breathe with it so his wrist would relax.

He hadn’t actually shot, but he’d scratched Chris. A drop of blood slid down from under the gun onto the bridge of the man’s nose, then swerved to run down one side of it. Chris’ lips were pressed together to the point that they’d nearly disappeared, and what was still showing was bloodless white. Then they peeled apart; it looked a little painful. “Okay,” he said, slow and calm. “I get it. We fucked up. We don’t go after kids— _I_ don’t go after kids. I’m not after your son. Let’s start there.”

“Good place for that,” John said after a moment.

They stared at each other for a couple more seconds, while John came up with and discarded about five different endings. But…at the end of the day, this wasn’t the middle of a fight, and John wasn’t the kind of man who killed in cold blood. 

“Mieczyslaw Stilinski—the one _I’m_ looking for—is supposed to be closer to seventy, and a seer, and the reason why I’m looking for him is last I heard, he was the one who was in charge of burying my father,” Chris went on. He rounded off each word like he was hand-carving them, with his eyes fixed to John’s face. “And since my father not only didn’t stay dead, he’s back as the kind of thing we’re supposed to hunt, I’d like to ask him what happened there. That’s all.”

“I think that’s understating it a lot,” John muttered. He pulled the gun off Chris’ forehead and pursed his lips a few times. Goddamn it, he thought. Should’ve told Stiles two hours. “He’s my father-in-law.”

Chris nodded absently. “I was pretty sure he wasn’t a natural blond.”

John looked at him. Chris kept his mouth a little open like he was going to explain that, and then just moved his shoulders sheepishly. That about summed up the night, if you wanted to take the nicest view of it.

“We need to talk more about this, but not here,” John said. “You go along with that, this might not end up with you learning everything the government knows about the supernatural. Deal?”

“Seems like it’s what I can get,” Chris shrugged.

Wasn’t the most ringing endorsement of what John admitted was a shitty plan, but as it turned out, Chris was a man of his word. He made the odd funny expression, but otherwise put up with it, hands always where John could see them, as John got the other bag and hunter loaded into the Jeep and then switched his zip-tie to just one hand to the door handle. 

The other hunter, John ended up zip-tying to the plumbing in a rest-area bathroom. It was isolated enough that at that hour, there weren’t any other cars in the lot, but close enough to a major state road that he thought somebody would come by in the next twenty-four hours. “If he doesn’t call you at that point, I’ll call 911 and get somebody out there,” John told Chris, ushering him into the back door to their rental. “He would call you, right? Or do you use signals?”

Chris looked oddly at him. “Like…what, exactly? Hand signals?”

“I don’t know, what hunters in the private sector use,” John said, annoyed with himself for asking such a dumb question. He didn’t even need to know; if nothing lit up Chris’ phone, he’d just put in the call.

“Okay, can I just—how did you get into this? You just—you know it, I can tell, but you just have a weird way of—” Chris said, before cutting himself with an awkward jerk of the head. He’d been silent the entire drive, not trying to make any small talk whatsoever and looking like he was just fine that way, but from the way he was acting now, that was more of an act than he’d been letting on. “It’s like you think if it’s not government, we work like hunting hasn’t moved on since the Salem Witch Trials. I have a cellphone—actually, _you_ have it.”

“Can we get back to where you’re hunting down my father-in-law?” John snapped.

“I’m not hunting him. I just want to know what the hell he did,” Chris snapped back. He let John push him into a chair, and remembered to keep his bound hands above the table, but he was still starting to show a frayed temper. “I’m not so sure he didn’t kill my father, too.”

“He didn’t,” John said without thinking.

Stupid. Chris immediately straightened up, and the only thing saving him from reading everything in John’s expression was that John was so tired and pissed off at everything about this situation that Chris couldn’t get anything else. At least, that was what John was hoping the frown on the other man’s face meant. He went around the table and banged his knee and shin into the next chair because he was trying to think of what to say to change the subject, and then they both startled as somebody made a surprised noise in the hallway.

Then John grabbed the chair and used it for balance so he could get his gun back out and train it on Chris’ head. “Hey, son,” he said. “Everything’s fine, you can go—”

“Dad, are you _kidding_ me,” Stiles said, getting over the wide-eyed shock and switching to weary disbelief a lot faster than John liked. He was in his pajamas, at least. “You have a guy at gunpoint in our kitchen, I am _not_ going back to bed.”

“ _That’s_ Mieczyslaw?” Chris said.

John risked a look over, and found the man staring at Stiles with an incredulousness that almost seemed angry. “Um, he knows how to say my name?” Stiles said, staring back. “I mean, he said it right—Dad, do we know him?”

“I am going to goddamn kill Kate, I swear to—” Chris really was angry, to the point that when he abruptly twisted to glare at the far wall, he didn’t seem to notice John half-lunging to grab his shoulder. He just rocked a little in the chair, then went back to clenching his jaw. “Last time I trust her to vet a goddamn—okay, so your son is absolutely not who I’m here to see. And your father-in-law—”

“Well, honestly, I think he might actually be the guy you’re looking for,” John had to admit. 

Chris looked up, frowning. He started to ask something, then glanced over at Stiles, who had edged a foot further into the kitchen. Then he looked at John; it wasn’t as judgmental as John had been expecting, that silent question. Maybe even sympathetic, if the night wasn’t just completely skewing John’s ability to read people.

“This is Chris Argent,” John told Stiles, because he didn’t think the situation was to the point where he could put away his gun, and his son wasn’t going away short of John carrying him away. “He’s looking for your grandfather, because his father’s come back from the dead.”

“What, that Gerard jerk?” Stiles said, eyes widening again. Then he winced and looked a wordless apology to John.

Thankfully, Chris didn’t seem to read anything unique into the reaction. “You _have_ met him,” he muttered, slouching down. “Damn it. Did he—did he hurt somebody you knew, or anything like that?”

“Not…so much, but he didn’t strike me as the kind of person I wanted to get to know better,” John said, giving Stiles a pointed look back while Chris wasn’t looking at him. “Anyway, we don’t know anything about what might have happened to his body.”

Stiles’ eyes rapidly moved between John and Chris, and then he nodded vigorously at John. And then, because he was him, he didn’t go upstairs. He went left, into the living room, and came back with his laptop under his arm.

“Yeah, I believe you. I’m sorry—I’m sorry, if I’d known, I wouldn’t have bothered you,” Chris was saying, so John couldn’t do more than try to will Stiles to not climb into the seat at the other end of the table and pop open the laptop and start taking notes. “But your father-in-law. I have to ask—I’m sorry, but my father’s literally killing people and we’re trying to stop him, so if your father-in-law knows anything at all…”

“I haven’t talked to him in months,” John said, which was true enough. And if he was a more coldblooded man, he probably would have left it at that. But as angry as he still was at Mieczyslaw, the man was still family, and moreover, had been there to show John and Stiles how the supernatural worked (even if John disagreed every step of the way with how he’d gone about it). “But he’s not a…a necromancer, or anything like that.”

“We can see the dead and talk to them, but we’re not like zombie witch-doctors,” Stiles added, looking earnestly over the top of his computer. “Granddad’s hardcore, but at the end of the day, he takes his family duties seriously. So he wouldn’t do that kind of thing on purpose.”

Chris had stiffened a little when Stiles had first started talking, but as Stiles went on, he settled down with a thoughtful expression on his face. Frankly, John would have felt better if he’d gone on looking skeptical. “So this runs in the family? The psychopomp gift?”

“Y—” Stiles clamped his mouth shut, then looked at John.

“Listen, exorcists are in the same line of work as we are. They’re not the kind of people I hunt,” Chris said, also looking at John. “I can get if my father gave you the wrong impression, but he’s—he’s not like the rest of us. Not one bit.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” John said. He waited for Chris to relax. “On the other hand, you jumped me right after I banished a gremlin.”

“Because my father’s a goddamn undead murderer and I just—” Chris realized outraged ranting wasn’t exactly going to help and pulled himself back, with a visible effort “—we need to put him down. It’s taking longer than it should. I’m a little frustrated.”

“No kidding,” Stiles muttered, ducking behind his laptop.

John glanced at him, then decided Chris would keep enough for him to get Stiles out of the room. But he’d just gotten his hand on the table to get up when Chris, suddenly looking nervous, cleared his throat. “I have a daughter, his age,” he said, nodding to Stiles. “I know how you feel. When Gerard first showed up, we didn’t know what had happened, and we let him—we let him into the _house_ , and Allison almost—he almost took her with him and believe me, I know what it feels like to worry about your family. I’m just after my father, all right?”

“Okay, but for that, you want my granddad,” Stiles said.

“Just to know what the hell my father is so we can put him down for good,” Chris said sharply. He pressed his lips together, then pushed his hands out so that the zip-tie around his wrists scratched at the table. “I’ll be honest, if it turns out your grandfather is helping him, I can’t promise anything. But if it was a mistake, or…I just need what he might know. I swear on my daughter’s head.”

“Well, that all sounds good, but we need to check it,” John said, as Stiles was gearing up for more questions. He gave his son a sharp look and Stiles made a face, but hunched himself behind his laptop. Which meant John had no hope of getting the kid to actually sleep tonight, but at least that’d keep Stiles in his room. “Everything checks out, I’ll put you on the phone with him. Fair?”

Chris didn’t look thrilled about it, but he didn’t take that long to nod. “Yeah, all right. I can put up with the garage, I’d just like to give my wife and daughter a call.”

“This isn’t the CIA,” John snorted. “We’ll put you in the basement, and there’s even a couch.”

And a whole floor between him and John’s son, with the only door into the basement opening into the kitchen where John was planning to spend the rest of the night, so there would be no sneaking in to interrogate the guest. Stiles wasn’t thrilled about it either, but all in all, John thought he’d managed to salvage a workable arrangement out of a shit night.

Then he went into the garage to take out the goddamn recycling, and Mieczyslaw was waiting for him. “Are you kidding me?” John said instead of punching him, because sheer shock had frozen his limbs.

“We need to leave immediately,” Mieczyslaw said. “I was wrong. They will die if you are not there.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gremlins, before the movie franchise, were demons specifically associated with mechanical troubles and a military environment. I'm referencing those and not the fluffy little bizarro-world muppets, and imagining that the military has enough gremlin outbreaks that their pest-control budget has a "miscellaneous" line item.
> 
> This did not make it into the story, but Mieczyslaw has John’s last name because he changed his to that in order to better disguise them, since his own family name is so well-known.


	17. Now

The trek to the ruins of Peter’s first family home is less than pleasant, and not just because Talia and Chris are pointedly avoiding each other’s line of sight. Peter prefers to know as little as possible about that particular insanity of his sister’s, but even he has his limits.

“I thought John was the one irritating you,” he finally says to Talia. “Speaking of, your personal life’s irritated Victoria once again, so she came to threaten me with your misbehavior—”

“Oh, it’s all right, she just thinks we’re going to make her daughter save somebody again. I’ll have a word with Kali and that should keep her busy,” Talia says, striding along as if the last three times she did that, it hadn’t ended in various werewolves shifting in broad daylight.

Peter doesn’t have any moral objections to blackmailing and involuntary psychiatric holds as methods of keeping their existence under wraps, but he does wish his sister would let him do it on his own time, rather than always in the context of cleaning up after her. “I believe she’s already taken her Allison and gone home.”

“Allison’s just doing that to make her happy, you know as soon as she looks the other way, Scott will sneak her out. And just as well if your idea of getting to the bottom of this is to pick fake fights with Stiles so you can convince yourself you’re really investigating and not just punishing yourself for not catching it before it upset him in the first place,” Talia says. Then she frowns, slowing down to stare at a recent deadfall that’s blocking the gentler side of the hill they’re standing on. “That’s at least two weeks old. If that’s Kali’s idea of looking after territory, I should just tell her Marin wants to visit her brother for Thanksgiving this year and see if that spurs her to spruce up a bit. That would keep Victoria busy too.”

“Victoria isn’t going to kill Morrell,” Chris grunts. The rougher terrain temporarily puts him ahead of Talia and Peter, as he takes a jumble of rock slabs in a controlled skid, but then he pauses to let them catch up. “I would’ve talked to her if you’d just let me know we were going out here.”

Talia rolls her eyes. “Oh, yes, like you’ve talked to her in the month since that ridiculous bait-and-switch idea to catch that poppet-using witch. When you could’ve just _talked_ to her and told her Allison just sprung that on you and you didn’t know till the plan was already in motion, and she shouldn’t be blaming you for it.”

Chris clamps his mouth shut, then stands there and lets pass him. Peter almost thinks that the man might drop out entirely, but he jumps down just as Peter’s about to pull past him. “She’s doing this on purpose,” he mutters.

“Well, of course she is. You have to respect my sister for that much, she always knows exactly why you want to kill her,” Peter mutters back through gritted teeth.

He doesn’t even feel disgusted with himself for finding common ground with the man. Sometimes Talia is so…so… _her_ , he just needs someone to understand that too. Understand that, and see why he really, truly does not kill nearly as many people as he deserves to.

“Now that you’re both sufficiently angry at me, let’s talk about what’s really going on,” Talia says as they come over the last hill. “I had a word with John—”

“When? When you were busy ripping his office apart to see when he’d come out to see the carnage?” Peter can’t help saying. “What were you saying about picking fights and masochism?”

The look she gives him isn’t surprised at all, just disappointed, and they both know exactly why: calling her a hypocrite is only an argument he pulls out when he can’t find any other good reasons to criticize her. “Before that. When I first realized what he was doing. These Ghost Riders, they’re not really that difficult to deal with once you realize how their memory tricks work,” she says calmly. “He was trying to explain how that meant he was handling it and didn’t need help, except it was becoming increasingly obvious he’d actually had firsthand experience with it. And then he stopped talking to me.”

Halfway through that Chris starts to say something, but then he sucks it back into his mouth. When Peter looks back at him, he isn’t pretending as if nothing had happened, but he clearly isn’t going to enlighten the rest of them as to what he’s mulling over.

Well, enlighten Peter, really, because Talia rolls her eyes and keeps walking as if the only thing surprising here is how long Chris took to get there. Which may have some real basis in fact, but again, that’s just Chris and Peter’s consistently pointed out to her that taking up with an Argent, even one permanently connected to John Stilinski, is pure madness.

“The woman in black has something to do with it too, so don’t start yelling at me that I stuck you with the red herring again,” Talia says, just as Peter was going to raise that loose thread. She pauses just behind a half-rotted stump, one foot braced against it so that she’s temporarily an inch taller. “I’m not sure how yet, but they’re connected. They’re not the _cause_ , but they’re both symptoms. You need to stay angry, Peter—that’s how you break through the Ghost Rider illusions.”

“Well, that’s a new one, someone telling me I have a rage _deficiency_ ,” Peter says acidly, coming up next to her. “Also, I thought I wasn’t to worry about that.”

Just then, she sticks out her elbow and jars him enough that his foot slips over the half-covered roots around the stump. Peter snarls under his breath and straightens back up, and then sees her point about anger.

Their old house is little more than a blackened, fire-cracked foundation at this point: after the fifth time idiot thrill-seeking teenagers had gotten themselves trapped in the ruins, the city had condemned the building and offered them decent compensation for arranging the tear-down (coming with a distinct threat of taking it over if they’d refused). Neither Peter nor Talia had been thrilled about it—much of the power in their family heirlooms was bound up in the location itself, and couldn’t be properly reconstructed away from the plot—but they hadn’t seen any good alternatives. So they’d ripped out what they could, then paid contractors to rip down what had been left of the frame and to pump in concrete to fill up the basement.

Occasionally someone brings up the idea of installing firepits and grills and turning it into a campsite. They usually don’t last more than one city council hearing, and most people with any brains still treat the place as if it’s private property. So the concrete lacks the graffiti artwork that inevitably crops up with any other unattended blank slab, and is generally free of any litter or dog shit. It usually doesn’t look like anything—it’s just Peter’s head that overlays the plot with the thick, lung-collapsing billows of smoke, the never-quite-heard whispers that always seem to arch into a scream as he turns towards them. 

Memory, he tells himself. He spares a moment to wish he’d read through that email he’d forwarded himself from Scott’s phone, rather than bickering with Derek on the way to the duck hide.

“They don’t center around this place,” Chris says, coming up behind them. He stays a little behind, like the hunter he is and always will be at heart, preferring their backs to their faces. “The Rider attacks. So what do you—”

Talia crosses her arms over her chest, then gives Chris a disappointed look over her shoulder. He raises his brows, then audibly stifles a curse when Peter clears his throat. “Somebody’s put up cairns,” Peter says, hooking his chin at the nearest one. “And if I’m not mistaken, those are all the places they found a body.”

Chris twists sharply around and peers at the little piles of stones. He takes a step forward, then half of one back as he pushes back his coat. One glance at Talia, who shrugs, and then he pulls out a gun and his phone, and warily approaches the foundation.

“How many fights have you picked with him?” Talia asks quietly, as Chris walks to the far end of the house.

She’s dropped the merrily blasé attitude, and looks directly back when Peter turns to her, eyes keenly searching his face. He lifts his upper lip in a silent snarl and she heaves a worried sigh, one of her hands fidgeting with her sleeve as if any moment it might reach out for him.

“Isn’t that part of the plan?” Peter finally replies.

“Well, if you’re going to act like a silly masochist who doesn’t deserve to be loved,” Talia says. She does not, in fact, take him by the arm, but she does step over so that their shoulders are pressing together. At least she’s not trying to purr him into breaking down and sobbing into her shoulder. “Just because you tend to commit homicide when you’re not caffeinated enough doesn’t mean you aren’t loved and appreciated, and some day, Peter, I’ll kill enough people to convince you of that.”

Peter twitches. “All right, first, I’d like it to be on the record once and for all that my _diet_ has absolutely nothing to do with my murder record—”

“I know, I saw the scatterplot Stiles cooked up the last time Victoria was after you,” Talia says.

That had been a brilliant graph, Peter has to admit. The memory of Victoria’s expression alone when Stiles had clicked and her kills had gotten plotted over Peter’s own…it flares warmly to life in his head, and for a second, standing at the foot of the greatest disaster his family has ever suffered, Peter sees nothing but joy.

Then he breathes in, and the smell of calcined concrete that never really leaves the place brings him back. It’s a hard awakening.

“How bad is it, really?” Talia asks him. She cranes her head around, taking on a posture that’s borderline deferential as she looks up at him. She’s a half-head shorter than him but still, that isn’t necessary unless she’s trying to butter him up, which she transparently is. 

But suddenly it isn’t annoying. Nor are her attempts to keep him off-balance, or her…her just knowing him so well. It isn’t annoying. It is unwelcome, but Peter just can’t summon up the energy to feel much of anything about it. He just…

“I don’t know what’s the matter with him and he won’t let me ask him,” he mutters. He starts to put his hand up to rub at his face, then sighs and shakes it and just crosses his arms over his chest. It’s always a little cold around here, even for werewolves. “Well, that’s not right—I always could, but then we’d have to go chase them down again. Why do they do that? They know we’re just going to find them, so why do they always leave?”

“I don’t know either,” Talia sighs, and sounding so uncharacteristically resigned about it that he has to look at her. She isn’t watching him anymore; her face is pointed in Chris’ direction, but her scent is undecided enough that he doubts she’s actually watching the man. “I really don’t. You know—John isn’t exactly the subtle type. He puts it all in his face, and I don’t even have to bother smelling it on him most of the time, and still…so many years and I don’t know what goes on in that head of his. I thought he would’ve gotten it the last couple times we ran them down.”

Her weight settles against Peter’s arm. He thinks about shrugging her off, because he’s always thought about that, ever since he was old enough to realize that alpha and not-alpha was going to rule his life, but then Talia twists away from him. She’s always had that sense for when he’s getting antsy, and occasionally, she chooses to use it for good.

“He still is very young, you know.” Then she smiles without looking at Peter. “Oh, I do love how you can’t help defending him. You know I don’t mean it like that. I respect his gifts, Peter. I just meant no matter what you do, he’s never even going to think you went too far.”

“He’s no fool, and he doesn’t put up with them,” Peter says.

“Scott aside?” Talia says.

“That idiot is loyal, at least, and most of the time Stiles knows when and how that’s valuable—you’re trying to irritate me again, making me defend the McCall boy,” Peter says, glaring at her. “I don’t think for a second we’re really in danger of getting snatched up in a Ghost Rider illusion, by the way. John wouldn’t have let you take that over.”

Talia smiles at him again, giving him an absent pat on the shoulder (which he does shrug off, since now it really is just about getting under his skin and not about cheering him up). But the smiles fades as she draws in another breath. “No, but I was considering trying it.”

For a moment, Peter isn’t sure what she means. Then he thinks she does, but for all her dramatics, at her core, Talia is utterly pragmatic about survival. That’s why she’s survived for so long, that’s why her family and her pack have survived for so long, and that’s why Peter still, despite everything she does, has a sense of respect for her. She might infuriate him enough to temporarily forget it, but never enough to make him actually lose it.

“I’m not insane, Peter,” she says dryly. “No need to worry that you’ve got to wrest control from Laura to make sure we all stay alive.”

“Well, if my niece picked better betas, I wouldn’t have to consider it. That Lahey boy isn’t so bad, but I don’t know what she was thinking with the latest set, and I certainly think a Hale could do better than assistant guidance counselor,” Peter snorts. “At this rate, you might as well ask Lydia’s mother to run the high school.”

“She’s the principal, Peter. She _does_ run the high school, and Laura’s at least been keeping that under control while this has been going on,” Talia says. She waves her hand vaguely in the right direction, then sweeps the hair back from her face. “No, Laura doesn’t know either. The Martins just told her they thought the kids were still upset from the last pack challenge, and if she could work with them to cut out the drama for a while, they’d appreciate it.”

Lydia yet again, Peter translates. Damn that girl, he probably will end up having to talk to her. “I still don’t see how our luck in not having the children underfoot means the only way to figure out the latest Stilinski trauma is to let yourself be kidnapped by Ghost Riders.”

“First of all, that’s not the final idea. I just said I’d _considered_ it,” Talia says. “Second, because this is about Mieczyslaw, and—”

“What exactly did Lydia say to you?” Peter says. “Because she lies, you know. She lies very well. Banshees aren’t real psychopomps, they don’t know all the secrets of the dead, and they certainly wouldn’t know—”

“Peter, she said Stiles asked her to double-check that his spirit wasn’t still walking around,” Talia says.

Across the foundation, Chris’ head comes up and he looks over at them. He’s too far to have heard them, and it’s probably just bad timing. Or maybe one of them had stepped on a twig, or kicked a stone. Either way, once he sees their expressions, he starts heading back to them.

“The man’s dead,” Peter finally says. “We of all people should be sure of that.”

“I know. I know, but then I went from her right to John and—” Talia lets out an airless, humorless laugh “—oh, that was the wrong move. I knew that as soon as I opened my mouth and his face did that—you know how they go a little tired on you? Just enough that you know they’re not really with you anymore?”

Sadly, Peter does. “Why were you talking to Lydia in the first place?” he says, trying to focus on what might move things forward.

“He told me the same thing—said it had to just be a nightmare, it couldn’t have been a vision or anything like that,” Talia says, as if he hadn’t spoken. “And I knew it wasn’t really that either. Mieczyslaw’s not a zombie or anything like that, but he’s… _something_ is back, Peter, and we need to find it and exorcise it, once and for all.”

If the point was to keep Peter angry enough to fight, he thinks as Chris nears them, then Talia’s failed. He’s not angry anymore, even though he should be. He’s not resigned, not by a long shot—he knows what he has with Stiles, and he’s not prepared to give it up. His sister…she has a point about his tendencies in relationships, as much as he resents her for it, but a tendency is a bad habit, at most. It’s not a life-goal. 

But then, he’s never been the type to just need anger to drive him. Anger isn’t actually that dependable—just look at his nephew, scrapping one moment with Scott over who’s the strongest and the next, they’re falling into bed with each other. A real, well-thought-out plan should stand up no matter how you’re feeling.

“You work it out?” Chris calls to them, stopping a few yards short. He spends a few minutes looking down—the foundation boosts him a couple inches higher—and then steps off the concrete. “Going to give me something better to work with than picking on my family?”

“That’s rich, when we’re standing on the ashes of what they—” Peter starts to say, because yes, Chris is part of the pack, but he isn’t about to let the man get comfortable with it.

His sister steps forward, raising her hand to cut him off. “I think the Ghost Riders showed him Mieczyslaw,” Talia says.

Chris looks unhappy but not shocked, so it’s something he’s considered himself. “You don’t think Claudia? I thought you said the woman in black part was important.”

“He doesn’t get like this over Claudia. When it’s her, he goes and gets drunk for a night and then Stiles sits with him, and they get over it,” Talia says bluntly. “It had to have been Mieczyslaw. The woman in black, I still haven’t figured out how that fits in, but—”

“You put the stones down yourself. You’re still trying to redo that day,” Chris says after a long moment. He starts to look over his shoulder, then gives himself a shake and goes back to staring at Talia. “Look, even I don’t think that was your fault—”

“It’s not about fault, it’s about knowing what _happened_ that night,” Talia snaps, suddenly enraged. Her scent makes the hairs on Peter’s neck prickle, and for a second Chris goes unnaturally pale, shading into his familiar form. “I walked through all of it all over again, because that’s what the Ghost Riders do. I’ve talked to some of the people at the hospital, and it’s always the same story—some key moment in their life plays out differently, and this was it. I think this was it for them.”

Chris grimaces. It doesn’t make it into his scent, because he’s leaning on his powers. “I don’t think so. I mean, I think you’re right about it going back to Mieczyslaw, but not to here.”

“Why not?” Talia demands. “What else would eat at them this badly? He _died_ here, Chris.”

“No, he’s right,” Peter says reluctantly.

He’d braced himself, and Talia would never actually drive him out; he knows this the same way that he knows he would never actually want to see her dropped from alpha. They’re just too intertwined, their likes and dislikes, the way that they chafe each other and then lick the other’s wounds. Nobody would know their sore spots the same way. But still, when he sees the way she looks, he takes a half-step back.

It’s only a second, and she’s already cooling down. But she loves John Stilinski almost the same way she loves Peter—something _in_ her drives her that way, something more primitive than simple emotion. And Peter understands that better than anyone else.

“Peter,” Talia says carefully.

“I never told you because you wouldn’t have cared,” he explains. “It only really matters because it—because now it’s bothering them.”

Talia considers that. A little at a time, like chewing gristle, and as the pieces fall, she slackens. Her head and her shoulders and then her arms, loosening so that she can press them against her stomach, holding herself rather than barring against him. “What happened, Peter?” she asks quietly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not entirely sure what TW has against older sisters (besides Laura and Talia, I understand we got a third fridged one in seasons after I stopped watching), but it's ridiculous. Sibling rivalry is a rich ground for characterization and we all know Peter's more fun when his snark is being deployed for defensive measures.


	18. Then

“You can’t just break in here and tell me that and think I’m just going to leave with you,” John distinctly remembered telling his father-in-law. “It’s the middle of the night and Stiles—”

“Make a sandwich for him,” Mieczyslaw had said. “No, two. The drive there and back will take a day. He is old enough.”

John had stared at the man for a few seconds. He’d been so tired that he hadn’t been totally convinced this was really happening. Even for Mieczyslaw, this was ridiculous, and Stiles was probably still trawling government databases instead of sleeping and there was a professional hunter tied up in the basement whose father John had _killed_ , except not really, and—John had turned around. “I’m not just going with you. You need to explain what the hell—”

That had been stupid. Kind of. Well, honestly, John still felt he shouldn’t have to worry about his goddamn father-in-law bewitching him and kidnapping him out of the house. Jesus _Christ_.

When John lifted his head, bleary-eyed, mouth tasting weirdly like tea, he had just enough time to realize what had gone down before the car he was in jolted roughly and he banged his head into the side. He cursed and threw up his arm, shoving himself back, and then scrabbled for a hold as the car kept bouncing. “You son of a _bitch_ , I can’t believe you—Stiles. _Stiles_ , goddamn it, where is Stiles, did you goddamn leave him al—”

The car wasn’t actually moving. Well, it was, but not because anyone was driving it. Nobody was in it besides John, and John was getting rattled around because somebody outside was trying to shove it around like a toy. It rocked sharply again and John looked up, keeping a death-grip on the armrest, and saw a distorted face pressed up against the glass, along with two clawed hands.

Then it went away, but the tension in the air was enough warning to John to not feel relieved. He looked frantically around, then realized a familiar weight was digging into his armpit: his gun. He got it out, checked that it was still loaded, and then shot through the window just as the werewolf launched itself at the car again.

John knew he didn’t have wolfsbane bullets in there, so the moment the werewolf fell out of sight, he scrambled backwards over the seat and then slammed his elbow down on the lever to open the back. Then rolled out, sweeping his gun sight across his front before he ducked around the end of the car for a look.

It…wasn’t a werewolf. It was a guy in a werewolf-like mask, which was hanging by one ear as he groaned and flopped around, clutching his chest not so much like somebody who had a bullet-hole as…John dropped next to him, pistol-whipping his head when he started to reach over, and ripped open his shirt to reveal a bullet-proof vest.

“Shoot him, you fools! No witnesses!” shouted a man’s voice.

At the same time, the man John was examining suddenly surged up in a way no normal person should be able to. John jerked back and lost his balance, falling on his ass, and the guy dropped for him and inadvertently took two bullets in the back for John. The impact knocked him back into the car where he slumped, still snarling—the whites of his eyes were veined with black. Some kind of magic going on, giving him the extra strength.

John looked past him and saw three more men coming, and guns weren’t going to handle this. He threw up his left hand and gestured frantically.

The man against the car suddenly screamed, then grabbed at his eyes. Almost stumbled over John and just missed falling on John by a hair; John wormed free just as blood was starting to drip out from under the man’s nails. Then kept going, past the other three who were now shrieking and waving their guns at something only they could see.

One of their guns went off, not anywhere near John, but enough to make him hurry up and try to find the leader. Whatever magic was pumping them up, it had to be complex enough that somebody else was controlling it for them, and he—

He stared. The house in front of him was on fire in a way he’d only ever seen in training videos, big gouts of flame springing from every single corner. One yellow flare grabbed his eye and drew it down to—Mieczyslaw, doubled over another man, and punching the living shit out of him. 

That gave John pause again, because Mieczyslaw knew how to handle himself and because of that, never had to resort to fists. No, he always had a spade or a blessed sword or some—there was a sword in the grass right by them, glinting. John followed the point to the ground-level window where a hand was sticking out between shards of broken glass, and then took off.

“No!” Something barreled into John from the side, bringing him down heavily enough that it knocked the wind from him. He gasped, staring up at the cinders falling all around him, and then a little girl screamed.

John rolled over. Mieczyslaw was hurrying past him, the visible side of his face bloody and bruised, with the sword in one hand. He was using the sword to slash at the grass, but just as he passed John, he dropped the sword. Didn’t look back, just kept going towards the burning house.

The air changed at John’s back. He grabbed the sword up, just on instinct, and rolled the other way just as the man Mieczyslaw had been beating up came roaring at him. It was that man John had shot—Gerard Argent—only he had fangs and claws and snake-yellow eyes. And something weird on his skin, like scales, except as soon as the sword bit into him, they disappeared and John didn’t get a good look.

Gerard’s eyes widened sharply. Something black and thick like tar spurted from his mouth. His left arm came down, swiping at John and John felt his shirt tear at the shoulder. He jerked back from Gerard, taking the sword with him, and then jerked about as someone said his name.

“Cut his head off,” Mieczyslaw said, trotting up, an unconscious girl about Stiles’ age slung over his shoulder.

“Did you do this?” John demanded, pointing at Gerard, who’d fallen limply on his back.

Mieczyslaw shook his head. “No, not that. He did that to himself.”

“I don’t mean the stabbing—I mean him not being dead!” John snapped, because with Mieczyslaw you had to parse things out like that. “What the hell—and you _knocked me out_ —”

“We have no time,” Mieczyslaw said. He looked at John, then jerked forward unexpectedly. 

John swung the sword out of the way, then stepped to the side, thinking the man was being attacked from behind, and suddenly Mieczyslaw had dropped the girl on his outstretched arm. Swearing, John fumbled with the sword, pain burning out from his crooked elbow, and then he hiked the girl up against his chest so he could grab her with his other arm. He rolled her, checking frantically for whether he’d cut her with the sword, and had just reassured himself he hadn’t when he was yanked forward.

“We have no time!” Mieczyslaw shouted right in his face. The man was—was crazy. Whites of his eyes showing all around the iris, spittle flying in John’s eyes. John had never seen him upset like—had never seen him _upset_ , period. “I did not see—I thought I did, but I did not see it all, not the first time and—”

“Just tell me what’s going on!” John shouted back. He ripped himself away from the other man, then stumbled as the girl’s weight threw him off. Something caught and jerked him—he still had hold of the sword, and its dipping tip had stuck in the ground. John swayed into it, taking advantage of the support, and then dropped to his knees. He put the girl down and surged back up onto his feet, taking the sword with him. “What did you see? What are we trying to stop?”

“I did not bring him back!” Mieczyslaw cried. He was walking backwards now, towards the house. The roar of the fire had grown so much that it was hard to hear him. “I did not bring him back! But it was my fault. It was mine—I did not see what he did to himself, I did not deal with it when he was buried.”

He couldn’t be, John thought, and then the blaze spit out a chip of wood directly onto Mieczyslaw’s shoulder and Mieczyslaw didn’t brush it off. Gravity took it down the man’s front, and then the hot air blasting from the house blew out the flames where they’d started to seat themselves in Mieczyslaw’s coat, but that had nothing to do with him. He was still walking backward. “That doesn’t mean you have to—Jesus Christ, you don’t have to! You don’t—what about us—”

“Stiles is old enough. And you do not like me.” The wind abruptly dropped and so did the roar, letting Mieczyslaw’s small, calm voice carry. “I am old, John. Too old—I see nothing now but how I will die. This happens at the end, for us. I see it, I have seen it a hundred times and this is the way I—”

“ _Fuck_ your sight,” John snapped. Movement at the corner of his eye made him turn, yanking the sword up in front of him—people were shoving themselves through that basement window, now broken. Bloody and on fire and they were crawling towards him—but he saw something else move and swung back to find Mieczyslaw almost within arm’s reach of the house. “This isn’t—this can’t be the goddamned point of that, this is why I don’t like you and why I keep telling you Stiles won’t—”

“This is not the way I saw that I die, and this is the _point_ ,” Mieczyslaw said, his voice rising again. “I cannot choose what I see, my whole life I could not choose. But for this time, yes, I am choosing. I am choosing that I _do not see_. I have seen you and Stiles—you will live. You will live, and I do not see me with you. And I do not want to wait any more, I do not want to see any more. I do not want to see how I die any more times, so I choose to die now.”

The girl shouted names and ran forward, to the people trying to escape the house. She grabbed the arm of one, beating wildly at their back, and then grabbed the other one by the shoulder. All three nearly fell to the ground as the flames leaped up, and from inside the house came a long, thin, terrible scream.

John jerked forward before he could help himself. But he couldn’t—even with magic, he couldn’t survive something like that. He couldn’t do anything for the people inside, but the people outside… “It’s not an eye for an eye, goddamn it!” he shouted at Mieczyslaw. “This isn’t how it—this _can’t_ be how it works! Maybe you were too late but it’s not—you don’t see everything, that’s what you told me, you can’t see everything—”

“Yes,” Mieczyslaw said. “Yes. I said that. Because we do _not_ see, at the end. I understand my daughter now. She did not send for me because _she did not want to see_. If I had come, I might have seen her and stopped her. And it is too much, at the end. I am too tired.”

And with that, Mieczyslaw twisted around and leaped at the house. He did something—his arms spread out and the fire flared white-hot to embrace him. John stumbled back, ducking his head into his forearm to shield his eyes. And then when he looked up again, Mieczyslaw was gone.

The thing was, John _didn’t_ like the man. Hadn’t gotten any fonder of him over the years. They both knew they were only working together because they had a common cause, but the disagreements over the how and why had kept that from ever turning into real sympathy for each other. And yet it was like John had been punched in the chest.

He dropped to one knee again, just gaping at the house like an idiot. The flames were still going, stronger than ever. They twisted like red and yellow snakes, threading over and under and over and—

John snapped out of the trance and whipped around, sword-first. Gerard, or whatever was in Gerard’s body, had just lurched up onto his knees, eyes yellow as piss and twice as foul. He had his hands up with the fingers bent like he was going to cast a spell.

Gerard flinched. Then fell backwards, because John had just driven the sword down into the center of his chest. John leaned on it for a second, making sure it was good and stuck in the ground beneath the man, and then turned around to find himself looking down at an exhausted, soot-covered pile of people.

“They’re all dead, the rest of them,” the girl Mieczyslaw had saved said. She was squatting, and looked the most aware of the three. The other two didn’t look too burned—or they’d already healed over—but they seemed to be in shock and were half-curled over each other. “All of them!”

John didn’t know what to say to that, honestly. He felt like he should, and lifted his hand as a placeholder, but…hell.

“My family, they’re already dead! They came in and shot them first!” the girl said, and now she wasn’t hissing so much as sobbing. “They weren’t even hunters, they were—were other—”

“Werewolves?” John said.

The girl’s eyes widened, but then she seemed to decide to just go for it. “Yes, yes, and Mom’s not here—she just left Peter in charge and they had alphas, and I was hiding in the basement from them—”

John took a step away from her, looking at the house. For a second he just wanted to scream at it, because—what the _hell_ , Mieczyslaw. What the hell, why couldn’t the guy ever just say what was going on in his head, why did he—was it always like this? Was this really why Claudia had died, and not the disease? Just this madness, this insane rage building up with nowhere to get out and—

—and then the roof caved in. Something inside the house fell with enough force that the ground shook, knocking John back a few steps. Drove the air out of him too, so he had to breathe, and as he did, he…emptied out. He didn’t get any clearer, but he just…he didn’t have the rage in the way. So he could see too, in a way. Mieczyslaw wasn’t coming back.

He wasn’t, and John had a guy skewered on a sword next to him that had already died once, and an underage son hundreds of miles away with only a hunter John had threatened and chained up for company, and…John spun around and scanned the lawn, but didn’t see those other guys, the hopped-up ones in the werewolf masks. Which wasn’t that comforting, actually.

“You sure they were werewolves?” he said to the girl, because he just couldn’t process Mieczyslaw right now, and he needed something he could do that with.

“What?” she said.

“Werewolves. The people who took your family. They were really werewolves?” John said. “Didn’t just look like them?”

“I don’t—I don’t even know what that _means_ ,” the girl said, her tone veering from panic-stricken to indignant. “Are you saying I don’t know how to tell when somebody’s a werewolf?”

Pretty strong family bitchface, as Stiles tried to get away with saying. John looked around again, then twisted sharply to face the house again. “But the gunshots healed, right? You all got out. No wolfsbane bullets.”

The girl made an angry, confused noise, but before she could answer, one of the people folded up on the grass pushed themselves up, spat a bloody glob to the side, and squinted at John. “Oh, _you_ again,” Peter said. He leaned heavily on his elbow, his expression undecided between indignant and shocked. “Of all people—of course. Of course it’s you, when Talia went off specifically to—”

The other one rolled over, turning out to be Derek. “Yeah, we healed,” Derek growled. “Guess they got sloppy. Good thing, because now we’re going to—”

“But that was the point,” John said. “Not an accident. Just long enough to keep you down so the fire would get most of you, but there’s no reason to fake it being werewolves if _no one_ lives to talk about it.”

“What?” Peter said, frowning. Then he put out his hand and stopped Derek, who clearly wanted to finish his thought about what they were going to do. “They were trying to let us live?”

“It wasn’t other werewolves who did this. They just wanted somebody to think that,” John said, nodding to Gerard’s body.

Peter looked over, then blanched. “Cora,” he said sharply, and the girl immediately looked at him. “Cora, what did Mieczyslaw say to Talia when you were in the attic? He said—”

“He said—they were talking about how Blackwood was killing off Kali and Ennis’ packs, because they hadn’t gone back for him,” Cora said, looking nervously between Peter and John. Derek put his hand on her shoulder and glowered at John, and that seemed to make her feel better. “Mom asked if Mieczyslaw had seen anything about them going after—after his family too, because that guy had been there—”

“He’s the guy,” Derek muttered, jerking his chin at John.

Cora looked interested, but a sharp snarl from Peter got her back to answering his question. “He said no. He said he hadn’t seen that, that he hadn’t seen them in town so they should be fine—but then he said—he said…he’d seen her dying. And she needed to get to his family for help, and she said okay, so she’d go—”

“That goddamn _asshole_ ,” John hissed, and honestly, for one rage-blinded second, he was glad Mieczyslaw was dead. Sending Talia to Stiles and getting John out of the way so—

He was five paces into a sprint when something pulled him up. Not…exactly his dead wife’s voice in his ear, but it was that same kind of eerie sense, a tug on him he couldn’t ignore and for which he couldn’t trace the source. He turned around.

Peter was up on one knee and using Derek’s shoulder for support, while Derek had his other arm wrapped around Cora; John wasn’t sure if it was to comfort her or keep her back. They were all looking at him, and it wasn’t to appeal for help. No, they looked wary, like they weren’t sure if him leaving was a good thing, and that was what ended up making him stop, swear under his breath, and then take out his phone.

Stiles picked up right away. _“Dad, don’t be mad.”_

“Your grandfather’s—what?” John said. “Godd—what happened? Are you all right?”

_“Yeah, I’m fine, I—I know about Granddad.”_ And no kid Stiles’ age should sound like that, John thought. Like he didn’t want you to ask if he cared, because his caring was all used up. _“It’s—it’s okay, I saw it, and I know you got there too late and—I just wanted you to know, we’re fine here. ‘We’ meaning me and Chris, because circumstances beyond my control meant I had to let him out of the basement, but we’re fine, I’m not under duress and he’s actually been really cool about it all and even paid for the pizza and—”_

“Stiles,” John said carefully. “What happened? Did someone—did someone come see you?”

_“It’s okay, they didn’t get anywhere near me before Chris shot them,”_ Stiles said hurriedly. _“Also, not anybody we like—I’m not even sure we know them? I mean, did you know anybody named Ennis?”_

“Ennis?” Peter echoed. When John twisted around, he didn’t look remotely bothered about being caught eavesdropping. “Why is _Ennis_ looking for your son? He hates Blackwood now.”

He and Stiles would live, Mieczyslaw had said. And he’d told Talia to go—John twisted around. “Where did he tell your mom we were living?” John demanded.

Cora jerked back, and Derek moved like he was going to get in front of her. Then they both frowned at Peter, who was actually answering. “Crater Lake.”

“That’s not where we’re living,” John said, swearing again. He took a step towards them, then stopped and put his phone back to his ear. “Stiles, I’ll see you in twenty-four hours, I promise. Now keep out of trouble and put Chris on—”

_“He says he knows you’ll kill him if he hurts me, and anyway, right now it looks like you’re both mad at the same people, so he was just going to order more pizza and finish burying Ennis,”_ Stiles said, a little too cheerfully. _“Dad, I know. I saw, okay? I know, and it’s cool, and I’ll see you. Okay?”_

Then he hung up on John. It really wasn’t okay. It was…not good parenting, because John should be up there with his son, but he knew Stiles’ tone and Stiles was not being held captive by Chris. Stiles was also not _okay_ , and John should be there for him. He should be there, and he also needed to be in Crater Lake now and God, he just was wishing all kinds of death on Mieczyslaw right now. And that wasn’t okay either, but he just didn’t have the time. When he did, he’d sit down and figure it all out, but right now, what he had to do was just deal with it.

“Come on,” he said to the three people staring at him. “I have to undo what my goddamn father-in-law did, and—come on! Talia’s not with my son, goddamn it, and I don’t care what the hell Mieczyslaw saw, but I’ll be damned if it’s going to happen the way he wants.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, in this universe, Blackwood felt that Kali and Ennis had abandoned him after Gerard blinded him, so he targeted their packs rather than inviting them to join him. That does not mean they're automatically allies with Talia; more like everybody came out of that botched peace conference blaming each other. Which I think is more realistic than Kali and Ennis suddenly being persuaded to kill off pack members just for a power-up, if pack bonds are supposed to be tighter than blood family (a lot of people would receive financial benefits if they killed off close family, but they don't do it, and it's not just from fear of getting caught), and also doing it for a guy they've just witnessed royally fucking up his negotiating tactics.


	19. Now

“But that _is_ what you told me, and what John’s always told me,” Talia says. “That’s why you showed up when you did, because Mieczyslaw was trying to pull some insane homicidal version of musical chairs, where Chris killed Ennis and John killed Gerard, _again_ —”

She stops, and she and Peter both look at Chris, who has enough grace to look regretful about the annoyed sigh he’s just let out, but not enough to apologize for it. “Okay, nobody knew how prepared he was, not you, not me, not anybody. All right?” he mutters.

“No, considering there was a kill number three,” Peter says. “Really, you can excuse the first time the villain returns, but after that you’re just exploiting the audience’s love for the franchise.”

“Peter, seriously—”

Talia sighs pointedly. “The point is, I’ve been under the impression that John showed up with you all because Mieczyslaw had me taking on Deuc.”

“Because that is what happened,” Chris says, though he still has one eye on Peter as if he’s waiting for the opportunity to pivot back. “That’s not what he means.”

“And don’t nag me about long-winded stories and then complain when you don’t understand how we got to now,” Peter says, seeing that rise up in Talia’s expression. “You’re not paying attention. I just told you—”

She’s about to sigh at him, and then she changes her mind. Instead, she adopts a patient, encouraging expression, nodding along as he talks, and she knows how much that annoys him. He stops and she raises her brows in a silent question. And then, when he doesn’t immediately explain himself, because he can’t possibly just have a second to react to her, she turns back to Chris.

“I missed something, didn’t I?” Talia says.

“Well, he kind of buried it,” Chris says, with an air of slight discomfort that’s so transparently insincere it makes his long-departed father look justified in disowning him. He doesn’t hesitate a second to go on. “It was the part where John went after you without cleaning up everything here.”

“No, I knew that, that’s why your father came back a _third_ —”

“We didn’t have time for Mieczyslaw either,” Peter breaks in, unable to help himself any longer. Even though he can tell from her expression that Talia’s already caught up, even though he knows very well they’re _both_ taking advantage of his current short temper. “Deaton got Gerard and all the other bodies outside the house out of the way, but he couldn’t get at anyone inside and had to leave that for the police. I didn’t think it mattered because the fire didn’t let anybody either, and anyway, we did lay Mieczyslaw. It’s only that happened after we’d come back with you.”

Chris starts to say something, then stops and gives Talia a long look. He’s not generally afraid of her, for all that he still can’t bury the hunter in him, but in that moment, the way he looks at her…the two of them do have something between them besides John Stilinski. Something he cares enough about to step lightly around. But then, Chris’ vices have always included the inability to stop trying to normalize things.

“It was the night before they left,” Chris finally says. “While you were out picking up Laura from the bus stop.”

Talia frowns, but otherwise doesn’t react. “I was only gone…barely two hours. How on earth did you get out and back?”

“You were gone longer than that. It was closer to three,” Peter reminds her. And keeps his head up when her head jerks around, betraying how thin that calm of hers is. “You weren’t healed, you know that. You passed out on the drive back and Laura pulled the car over and had a panic attack and nearly drove you both out of the state before she thought to try calling _me_ instead of the house that wasn’t actually standing—”

“All right, all right,” Talia says irritably, making a dismissive motion with her hand. “She’d only known we’d all survived for six hours, Peter. She’s not responsible for the fact she doesn’t take after the psychotic side of the family.”

“If there was more common sense, psychosis wouldn’t end up saddled with all of the clean-up work,” Peter points out.

Talia’s eyes narrow. Peter raises his brows. Chris stares at the two of them as if he doesn’t know whether to pull a weapon on them, or use it on himself in a last-ditch effort to wake up from the nightmare. For a moment, it’s a perfectly normal day.

And then Talia closes her eyes the rest of the way, and puts her hand to her forehead. “Laura and I were in the car, and you and John and Chris went back to the morgue.”

“Not…quite like that,” Peter has to admit.

She opens the eye not covered by her hand. “Chris and John went, and you sneaked after them.”

“No, not that either,” Chris says reluctantly. Then screws up his face and looks at a point slightly below her chin, as she pulls her arm down and employs both eyes to deliver an incredulous stare. “He’d told me to drop Stiles off with the McCalls instead of bringing him to stay with Derek and Cora at the clinic, right, so he said he was just going out to get Stiles back. But I just—Stiles had let slip that it’d been John who shot Gerard the first time, and I wanted to talk about that, except not in front of—”

“You _both_ sneaked out after him,” Talia says, a dark kind of amusement in her face. “Separately. And didn’t notice each other till he’d gotten there.”

“Well, it was clear early on he wasn’t going to see the McCalls, and at that point I’d been nearly killed twice in as many days, so I wasn’t about to take any chances,” Peter says. “And even if he’d been on the side of saving us, the things I’d seen him do…I think I was completely justified in focusing on him.”

“No, I saw Peter, I just figured I could always deal with him second,” Chris says, shrugging. His pulse doesn’t stir a bit when Peter snarls at him. “Anyway, Melissa let him into the hospital, and yeah, he went to the morgue and did the rituals. It all went like it should, as far as I could tell, and before I left, I checked and didn’t pick up anything. Which is why I never mentioned it before this.”

Peter purses his lips. He doesn’t do anything else, as far as he knows, but Talia is already swinging about to look expectantly at him. But she’s his sister, and even without werewolf senses, she knows him too well. What’s surprising in an entirely unpleasant way is how Chris _also_ seems to know to look to him.

“I didn’t do anything,” Peter says. 

“Well, I know, you barely got yourself home, and didn’t even wake up when John finally did bring Stiles in,” Chris says impatiently. “But you saw something, didn’t you?”

“No,” Peter says immediately, and it is entirely driven by the desire to drag it out and make Chris take that half-aborted step towards him, so Talia then growls the man into pulling up. If Chris knows him that well, then the man damn well should know Peter takes his gratification where he can find it. “It wasn’t what I saw. It was what I heard. But I _was_ tired, after all, and a lot had happened—I wasn’t sure I wasn’t imagining—”

“The point, Peter,” Talia says, sharply enough for him to start. And she doesn’t look apologetic about it at all. Or as if she’s enjoying it, either.

But then, he isn’t either. And whatever she thinks, he’s not actually the type to just wallow in his own sins till the end of the world comes. He _is_ going to track down exactly what’s bothering Stiles, and when he does, he is going to thoroughly enjoy sending it to eternal rest, because that’s the kind of hedonist he actually is. “They had Mieczyslaw with all of the—with our family. They were still sorting out the parts,” Peter says. Then has to swallow, and remind himself that the burnt-flesh smell is all in his head. “I thought back then it was one of us, because it was a woman’s voice and I’d forgotten about his wife—”

“Claudia?” Chris snaps. His skin glimmers and then he regains control of himself.

“But then, when I did learn more about her, I didn’t think it fit,” Peter goes on, ignoring him and looking straight at his sister. “She—she really had no reason to be talking about us, if it was her ghost that’d somehow survived.”

Talia is very still, and very intent; she rarely speaks of it, but he knows she hates how much Claudia bothers her. John was done grieving the woman when he and Talia started up a relationship, and he’s never so much as hinted at comparing Talia and Claudia—something Peter appreciates in him—but then, Talia does enough of that on her own.

“What did she say?” Chris asks.

“I still don’t think it was her,” Peter says. “If there’s anything Stiles is more obsessed with than being everything his family wasn’t, it’s making sure everything they did is thoroughly buried—”

A cold wave of air suddenly rushes out from Chris as he takes a step forward, his arm coming up as if to grab at Peter. He’s got an angry noise rumbling in his throat, not quite to the point that it’d be audible to plain human ears, and then it bursts out in a flurry of curse words as Peter makes a warding sign and causes him to trip up against an invisible wall. “Goddamn it, do you always have to turn this into—”

“He’s not stalling, Chris, and I’ll thank you if you didn’t assume you can lecture my brother about when he can and can’t talk,” Talia says sharply. She levels a look at Chris, who throws his head up, then retires with a scowl in her direction. “That said, Peter, we’ve only so long before John finishes up with that last Ghost Rider and makes sure we don’t have that option anymore, so if you’d like to explain what you _do_ think happened, we’d all appreciate it. Including Stiles.”

“You don’t still think that invading Ghost Rider territory is the best way to figure out what’s going on, do you? You know, I could do some _research_ on them,” Peter says. “It’s the other thing I’m good at, besides murder.”

“You’re good at plenty of lesser crimes too, Peter, don’t fish for compliments,” Talia says, her tone half-playing at exasperated, half-sincere about it. She finally turns back to him and her eyes go over his face, then do it a second time. “Why didn’t you want to tell me before? No, why did you _really_ not want to—I know it wasn’t just because you thought it was nothing, if you still remember it.”

Chris doesn’t move an inch. He’s even smart enough to resist dropping into his other form, so that the complete lack of heartbeat doesn’t catch Peter’s attention. Which just makes Peter even more aware of the man watching, and for a second Peter thinks the only thing to do, no matter how juvenile it’ll make him look, is to storm off so he and Talia can have this talk in private. Which they should, he thinks savagely. Something like this, and she’s always annoyed him with this sort of thing, taking the public-performance part of being an alpha too far and forgetting pack and family aren’t automatic synonyms—

Talia’s expression changes ever-so-slightly, just enough for him to catch and read it. “That wasn’t why John and Stiles left that time,” she says. “You know that, right?”

Peter twitches before he can help himself. “I—”

“It really isn’t. I know that, even without knowing who the hell it really was that spooked you, or what they said,” Talia goes on, in a voice measured enough that Peter knows how much _she_ doesn’t want to have this conversation in front of Chris either. But there’s a point—there always is when Talia decides it’s her turn to be a self-sacrificing fool, even if Peter usually disagrees with it. “He took Stiles and ran because of—”

“Me,” Chris breaks in. Then gives them a thin, grim smile when they turn and stare at him. “It wasn’t you picking a fight with him over cutting in on your fight with Blackwood. Yeah, that got him mad, but when you went up to see the kids, Stiles and him started arguing about Scott. Stiles hadn’t actually gotten to see Scott, you know. It _was_ a full moon and Melissa was in town, but she was still sending Scott off to that uncle’s farm for those. So he wanted to stay till he got to, and John said fine.”

Talia glances at Peter, then frowns, as if she’d been expecting him to do something. “And then you…”

“And then he caught me picking some of Stiles’ hair out of their car, and I said some stupid shit about my father deserving it but if they could do that, I had no choice but to keep an eye on them,” Chris says, with a rueful grimace. “He knocked me out and when I came to, the two of them had left. You were all still in the house, so I got out of there too.”

“You know, I am continually surprised I actually got to meet Stiles at all,” Peter says, after he’s had a moment to absorb all of this newly-unearthed historical trauma. It’s on the tip of his tongue to point out that since he’d been asleep for all of this, they now have irreproachable proof he is not the most disruptive member of the pack. “John usually knows better than to keep coming back to places like this.”

“Oh, stop, Stiles knows the fight was just cover and your self-destructive tendencies, he’s just dealing with something. When he wraps it up, he’ll come find you and tell you how ridiculous you’re being,” Talia says dismissively. Then smiles brightly when Peter growls at her. “Still doesn’t mean I won’t be upset if you kill a substitute teacher again. Natalie is getting _very_ pissy about that and you can find better targets.”

She’s goading him into not being maudlin, and Peter would love her for it if she wasn’t so annoyingly good at it. “Getting back to the point, as you mentioned,” he says acidly. “It was a female voice, and it told John…it told him, he’ll always be haunted by us. ‘They’ll come after you again, they won’t stop till they’re on your doorstep.’” 

The amusement seeps out of Talia’s face. She doesn’t…go cold, precisely, although that would be how anyone not familiar with werewolves would read that expression. She’s thinking, with every single cell in her brain and body, and it’s all directed at pulling together the small bits and traces into one inescapable trail. You have to let the hunt swallow you, and that’s something normal people will never be to understand, how the human disappears. And how it has absolutely nothing to do with a lack of feeling—it’s just not a human feeling.

“John and Stiles have both spent years trying to figure out why Mieczyslaw died like that—whether it was a curse, or something like that finally coming for him,” Chris says slowly. “Psychopomps do attract malicious spirits.”

“Mieczyslaw knew what he was doing.” Talia’s upper lip curls slightly. “I didn’t care that much for him, the little I knew of him, but that was clear enough.”

“I’m not saying he didn’t. Just…maybe it caught up with him,” Chris says. “And maybe he finally got tired of running.”

As much as Peter hates to admit it, it’s a sound enough theory that he’d want to check it out. Stiles’ research summary had mentioned how the Ghost Riders created psychological illusions, and he could easily see how that might revive old hauntings, even ones that should have long since been exorcised. “Well, then it’s just a matter of—” he starts.

“I still don’t think that’s right,” Talia says abruptly. She stares past Chris at the scorched foundation, then turns halfway around. Pauses, and then turns fully. “It would tie it all up into a neat little bow, the woman in black and the Ghost Riders and Mieczyslaw…but I think that’s why I don’t buy it. Nothing about the Stilinskis ever ends up that neat.”

“Well, if it’s not going back to him or Claudia, then what else could it be?” Chris says, sounding exasperated. “I’m all out of ideas, so unless you were around for some other disaster with them that I wasn’t—”

“Peter, you talk to Lydia,” Talia says. She considers what she’s just said, then nods decisively. “Chris and I will stay here, and wait for John to handle the last Ghost Rider.”

“Lydia,” Peter says.

“By the time that’s done, Stiles should have worn himself out and will have crashed somewhere, so you can pick him up and then meet us all at the new house,” she says. She looks over her shoulder, then hikes her chin at Chris. After a dubious look, Chris sighs and gets off the foundation and comes towards her. “Since I’m your sister, I’ll recommend you use that chance to apologize, and since you’re my brother, you’ll ignore me and terrorize some poor bystander instead, which will make him even crankier, but which should at least keep him glued to your tail.”

“Lydia,” Peter says again.

Talia stops after having gone two steps. “Peter. She’s really not that bad.”

“ _Lydia_ ,” Peter says.

“Maybe I should do it,” Chris mutters. His phone is in his hand and he’s reading something on it. “Allison’s saying Victoria’s heading back out here for some reason, somebody needs to cut that off anyway—”

“She doesn’t actually _hate_ you, she just thinks you’re completely useless for Stiles and dress like gigolo trash,” Talia points out, with a little frustrated up-flick of her hand. “She’ll still answer questions, Peter.”

“Literally every time I talk to that woman, I have to kill someone. Not ‘I want to.’ I _have_ to. I have to, and it’s unscheduled, and only ever benefits her so I derive absolutely no enjoyment out of it whatsoever. And then she has the nerve to criticize my clothes,” Peter points back. “Just look at her side-pieces! Has any of them looked like she knew how to dress them?”

Talia tilts her head back slightly and peers at Peter through slitted eyes. Beside her, Chris clearly considers remaking his offer, and then just takes a sideways step off so he can call his daughter.

“Stiles told her something,” Peter says, slumping.

“Stiles told her something,” Talia agrees. “You do think he’s worth it.”

“Just know that I predicted this when we end up meeting in the morgue instead,” Peter says under his breath, stalking off. “And you wonder why none of the restaurants in this town let her and I in the door at the same time.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More than a few folklore traditions state that to break the spell of a witch, you need a part of their body, hence why Chris is trying to preemptive gather hair clippings.
> 
> I'm not particularly fond with the way TW handled the initial Peter-Lydia connection, but I do think the two of them have great enemy chemistry. I could go with them glaring at each other all day over Stiles' head.


	20. Then

After that time, John and Stiles didn’t head back to Beacon Hills till Stiles was halfway through high school. Stiles did get to see Scott regularly, but in Mexico, whenever Scott was visiting that side of his family, which put enough packs between them that even an alpha like Talia would need time to handle all the werewolf diplomacy.

Not that Talia had seemed that interested, the last John had seen of her. He hadn’t actually taken her fight with Blackwood from her—that had been credited to her, fair and square. He’d just shown up to make sure she got to survive to enjoy it, and reunite with her family, and apparently something about that didn’t work with werewolf customs about how one alpha got to take over another’s pack. He wasn’t really sure and honestly wasn’t that invested in figuring it out, given that one, now he had to worry about the Argent family, and two, Stiles was getting increasingly obsessed with making his gift ‘worth it.’

His son had always been interested in the spirit-talking side of second sight, and once John had gotten over the initial parent’s fear of any stranger talking to his kid when he wasn’t there, he hadn’t minded it too much. The vicious type of ghost was easy to exorcise and even easier to block, and the non-vicious type just seemed to want somebody to talk them into moving on. As the supernatural went, that seemed harmless enough.

Of course, with Stiles everything tended to get ahead of John’s comfort zone the second he stopped to blink. It started with a couple off-hand comments showing Stiles understood references he really shouldn’t at his age, which reminded John he was supposed to be a goddamn father, as well as the one keeping off the supernatural threats. So he manned up and sat his kid down to make sure whatever half-assed sex ed Stiles had gotten from all of the school changes actually covered what it needed to. Or at least he started to do that, and then Stiles explained to him why that had been thoroughly covered.

“You learned about _what_ from—” John finally said.

“Dad, you know they’re dead, right? It’s not like you can kill them again—I mean, I already sent them on and literally, they’re not coming back. Not at all. Nothing. Nada. Nil,” Stiles said, eyes wide when they weren’t darting around for an exit. He fidgeted in his seat. He kept putting his hand up to grab his pencil like he was going to go back to his chemistry equations, then dropping that and putting his hand back under the table. “And to be totally clear, I wasn’t…I wasn’t _asking_ , it just came up in the course of conversation because it was, um, well, it was, let’s say, highly relevant to how they died and why they were actually kind of confused on their life-death status in the first place and—”

John was a horrible father. Officially. Also, he had spent all of his spare time in the last two weeks working his way through every single-father site the Internet had to offer, and none of them had covered this. Not even the supernatural ones. “Son, I’m not…I’m not mad at you,” he managed. “This is—”

“If you’re going to say this is a natural thing, it’s okay, I got that covered,” Stiles said, his voice tight and high. “I mean, at this point, I have definitely heard enough stories about how repression is the _first_ thing you regret when you realize you’re dead—not that that means I’m gonna go out and try it early, ‘cause I’m not _that_ big into hands-on and…and Dad? Um? Can you…can you breathe? So I stop worrying you’re gonna pass out?”

He did have a point there. John took a big gulp of air; the harsh rasp of it made Stiles jump in his seat, but after that, his kid visibly relaxed. They had a moment to just look at each other, and it suddenly struck John how his son was growing up. The sleeves on Stiles’ shirt didn’t quite cover his wrists, even when he tugged at them, and the baby fat was starting to drop from his face.

It wasn’t hiding the bags under Stiles’ eyes anymore, or the way he looked five years older when he was worried. And just worried, nothing to do with his sight at all, just their lives grinding that into his face.

Maybe John wasn’t the parent who should’ve been doing this.

“Dad, so,” Stiles said, sounding nervous. He peered across the table at John, biting his lip, and then twisted sharply like he was just going to point out John hadn’t eaten for real yet (the car jerky Stiles wasn’t supposed to know about absolutely not counting, way too much nitrites, Dad) and get dinner for them, because that was something John had been letting slip away from him too. Then he took a deep breath and turned back. “You know…you know Granddad wasn’t on you, right?”

John flinched before he could catch himself. Then he got up from his chair and twisted around to start up the coffee machine, not so much because he actually wanted coffee right then as because he didn’t want Stiles reading the wrong thing into his expression. “Stiles, your grandfather did whatever he wanted. He said it was because of the visions he had, but I honestly don’t think that was true. He could’ve—I know this is coming from me, and I don’t have visions and you do, but I think even a plain person can tell when somebody’s using an excuse. So don’t—”

“I’m not _going_ to be him. I’m going to be so far from him, I mean, it’s one thing to use this to try and help people, but you can’t do that by just tricking other people and he could’ve gotten you _killed_ —I’m not saying that, Dad!” Stiles protested, his voice rising sharply. Then it got cut off in a clatter loud enough to make John whip around; Stiles stared at John and at the glass coffee-pot poised to throw over his head, at the attacker that wasn’t actually there, and then righted the chair he’d just stumbled into. “I’m just trying to say…but you never listen to me anymore. You’re always just…just trying to keep us hiding.”

“Well, with what your grandfather did and who it got on our tail, it’s necessary,” John said tightly. “I’m trying to keep us alive, and where do you think you’re going?”

“Oh, nothing. Just saw something, and figured I’d be like Grandad and stick my nose into it till I go bonkers like the whole rest of Mom’s family,” Stiles said, rolling not just his eyes, but his entire head as he turned on his heel. His moods had been giving John whiplash lately, quiet as a mouse to sarcasm so vicious sometimes John thought about rechecking whether teenagers were a different species. “Don’t worry, though, if that happens I’ll _definitely_ tell you, because genetically I can’t go insane without making a big drama out of it.”

John put the pot down. “Stiles, I don’t really like the—Stiles. Stiles. Do not walk—are you turning your back on me, son?”

He was escalating it, and in the back of his head, John knew that was the wrong damn thing to do. At heart Stiles was still a good kid, just dealing with more than anyone any age should have to, and getting stuck with other people’s troubles on top of that. John could see that in the way Stiles hesitated, the little hunch of Stiles’ shoulders just before he spun back around to face John. Even the way Stiles stalked back into the kitchen, clearly determined not to show any fear and just as transparent about how that fear was all about John hating him, and not about any kind of physical threat.

“I signed up for Science Olympiad and we’re meeting at school for some test runs. I put it on the calendar and everything, and Mrs. Joyce should’ve called you to let you know she’d pick me up,” Stiles said, meeting John’s eyes while his hand fumbled the first time it tried to flip his textbook closed. “Or do you want me to go tell her I’m canceling? And just stay home all the time, and not do any clubs?”

The whole thing was a dare. John could say ‘yes’ and Stiles would do it, and then he’d be stuck in the house with a fuming kid who didn’t have to point out to John how much this’d make them stand out. Or he could say ‘no’ and Stiles would soften, but then he’d want to talk about whatever he’d been trying to say before, and John just…

Chickened out of it and said nothing. Stiles frowned, not sure how to read that, and then stiffened up his shoulders. Decided, like the teenager he genuinely was now, to just take refuge in resentment till the world proved it was worth it to him, and silently collected his things and went out into the hall. Five minutes later, John heard a car honk in the drive, and the front door open and close.

“You fucking asshole,” John said to the cup of coffee he’d made anyway, and which he wasn’t drinking and which was pissing him off just sitting there on the counter. He started to reach for it, then yanked himself away. 

He needed to get out too. Clear his head, or at least get to where he could act like it was clear in front of Stiles.

Two hours later, John was sitting on the front of his car in an unclaimed stretch of grassland just outside of town, no closer to that or to anything else. He had a dead chupacabra carcass to show for his time, but that wasn’t really what he was after.

This just wasn’t what he’d planned, he thought, idly kicking one heel against his car bumper. Sure, he could blame life for derailing on him. Mieczyslaw too, and even Claudia, if he wanted to really lash out at somebody besides himself. But…that wasn’t right, not really, and it wasn’t because John was being selfless either. The real point was that he’d never really come up with a good game plan of his own. He’d yelled a lot about how he could do it, and how he was going to do it, because he wasn’t okay with what the existing plan was going to do with his family, but had he? Nope. So no wonder Stiles was feeling like he had to handle it all his own goddamn self, at fifteen.

John still didn’t have any idea what they were going to do, he acknowledged with a humorless laugh. But…he guessed he owed it to Stiles to admit that.

He texted his son that he’d swing by for pick-up so Mrs. Joyce didn’t have to, and that he was thinking they could go out for dinner. There was a chili ‘n dogs place he knew Stiles sneaked out to (his kid saw no issues with enjoying what he denied John because the ‘science’ said his cholesterol levels could take it), because they never went out to eat these days. Stiles pinged back immediately, asking if everything was okay. John grimaced at the level of worry he could sense in that and texted yes, he just thought they could get out for one night.

 _Okay_ was all Stiles texted back. John sat there for a good five minutes, typing up responses and then deleting them, and then he gave himself a shake and got up. He wasn’t going to figure out where his son and him stood with each other that way.

The chupacabra, he needed to get rid of before he drove into town. That was literally the only reason he stopped in the back of that garden center, because he’d done the owner a favor with a poltergeist and they kept a mulch heap just for him, and ended up finding a bloody Chris Argent lying in the middle of the perennials row next a trail of bloody shoe-prints leading _out_ of the center.

John dropped and checked the pulse—Chris recognized him, eyes widening, garbled words trying to squeeze out—and then ran around the corner to look out into the center’s parking lot. The air had the burnt-rubber tinge of a quick getaway, but there weren’t any cars in the lot, or any cars anywhere that John could see. And then, when he went back to Chris, the man was clearly dying.

“Your—your _son_ —came here—after him—” Chris rasped, fingers clamping onto John’s cuff as John pushed hands into his coat to find out where all the blood was coming from.

“Who? You? Your family?” John demanded. “How—”

Chris’ eyes were glazing over. John swore and started to roll the man over for—but CPR wasn’t going to fix this, and even if it did, it’d just end with the man carted off to the hospital when John needed him to explain what the hell was going on. Calling up the man’s ghost would also take too long, and it wasn’t ever a sure thing whether a ghost would come out sane and rational or just be so twisted up they could only be moved on. And somebody was here for John’s son and John needed to know who and why and they were in a garden center with a fresh chupacabra corpse, and for better or worse, John was now the kind of guy who knew how to turn that into a necromantic spell.

“Dad, I’m fine, I haven’t seen so much as a glamoured nose job,” Stiles said as he climbed into shotgun forty-five minutes later. “Although I think whoever’s doing Jennifer’s mom’s hair hates her this month, because that shade of bleach might be within the chemical…Dad?”

“Yeah, I know there’s an unconscious guy in the back,” John said, craning around Stiles so that he could return Mrs. Joyce’s wave. “We need to go. Get in and buckle your seatbelt.”

“Um, he looks dead, actually,” Stiles muttered over the click of the door. He bundled up his bookbag in his lap and was quiet till John had pulled out of the cul-de-sac and they were heading into a quieter part of the neighborhood. “Dad…he _was_ dead. And—and that’s Chris. Right? Did you—did you—”

John grimaced. “I didn’t kill him, but I did the—he’ll be up again in an hour or so. Don’t take this as it being okay for you to start playing around with that kind of sh—stuff, Stiles. I didn’t have a lot of choice at the time.”

Stiles made a hard-to-classify noise, jumping and harsh at the same time. When John looked over, Stiles had his shoulders pulled up towards his ears and, surprisingly, didn’t have his phone or his notebook out. He was staring down, but as far as John could tell, he was just picking at a hangnail.

He did eventually lift his head, two minutes after they would have arrived home, but he didn’t say anything for another ten. Not till they’d pulled up in the dark parking lot of a closed bank across the street from that chili ‘n dog place, when he finally let out an incredulous snort and shifted in his seat. “God, really? Dad, I can just—I have an apple, I can just eat that.”

“We can’t go straight back, you know that, Stiles. I need to check—”

“ _Are_ we going back?” Stiles said. “At all?”

His voice jarred around the inside of the car. John shied away from it, then sighed and looked at his son. “Stiles—”

“Look, yeah, I do—I _do_ get it,” Stiles said listlessly, leaning his head against the window. “I get it. I get we have to do what we have to do, and believe me, Dad, I like being alive. And I get how hard it is, and I get—I get I’m being totally ungrateful by just wishing I wasn’t doing the YA novel thing and complaining about my tragic backstory specialness. So you don’t have to just—just try and pretend we’re gonna—”

“Stiles, I don’t know what I’m doing,” John snapped. Then winced at how his voice seemed to ricochet through the car like a gunshot. He glanced at his son, who was trying to hide wide eyes against the window, and then pressed his hand to the side of his face. “I don’t, but I do know…this wasn’t what I had in mind for you. Look, your grandfather, I told him you weren’t going to end up like your mom. Or like him, and he was a piece of work even before he did—did that.”

It was silent in the car. Outside, across the street, a happy-looking family of two parents and one little girl spilled out of the restaurant. They weren’t so far away and should’ve been able to hear, but for some reason John couldn’t make out anything. Even though he could see that they were all laughing, enjoying themselves, he couldn’t hear it.

“I kind of knew you hadn’t warmed up to him,” Stiles said, with an awkward little chuckle. “I mean, honestly, Dad…this sounds really bad but I was so glad when he stopped coming with us. I can look up whatever we need to know on my own, and he was just so—so _mad_ all the time.”

“Mad?” John said, frowning.

“I mean like he was angry,” Stiles hastily explained, which hadn’t actually been the source of John’s surprise. “He was. He was always telling me this or that was how it’s been his whole life, but you could tell he hated it, and it was just—it was getting like Mom towards the end. And I just…I’m trying to figure out how to do this so I don’t end up like her and I didn’t need that around when I’m trying to do that, and then he goes and kills himself? I just—”

“I really don’t feel bad about that.” John could feel the shock emanating from Stiles’ corner and couldn’t quite bring himself to look at his son. But he did keep talking; he owed Stiles that much. “I don’t. He wanted you to be different, or at least he said he did. But he never got on the damn wagon, and I just…I told you I’d make sure this wouldn’t ruin your life too, and I’ve been trying to find a way but I just…I don’t know if I’m really doing anything. If I’m helping at all. I’m sorry.”

The family across the street got into their car, the dad sucking on a soda as he steered out of the parking spot with one hand. His wife was leaning into the backseat, doing something with the girl, and he didn’t even look over at them. Just so sure they’d be there, John thought.

“Dad, why do you hate Beacon Hills so much?”

John startled. Then looked at Stiles.

“I mean, maybe that’s not the right word. But you don’t want to have anything to do with it, or anything or anyone from there, and I think…look, this is all weird and messy and getting to see versions of the future is _so_ not helpful,” Stiles went on. He dug into his bag and pulled out a notebook, then started flipping through it in between glances at John. “Sure, helps with avoiding dying, but what they don’t tell you is there’s all this time in between the near-death experiences and for some reason you just don’t get visions about the long boring trauma-processing conversations. So if you want to talk about not knowing if you’re helping…”

“Okay, kid, don’t start with that, you don’t even have a driver’s license yet,” John said, with a laughing snort he couldn’t quite help.

“No, but I’m in this too. I’ve been in this from the beginning, and I don’t care how many times you’re gonna act like it’s a one-man show,” Stiles said, looking up and nailing John with his eyes. It wasn’t the annoyed part of his expression; it was the part where he was trying to cover up how worried he was. “And since visions are useless here, I’ve been thinking and it just seems like…like things go back to that place. And _you_ don’t want to go back there, for some reason. But if the key to figuring out this all really is there, and Dad, I know you don’t like it, but I think I’m old enough now. I mean, I’m gonna know even if you don’t like it, so can we…I just want _us_ to get this done. You and me, Dad.”

It wasn’t funny, but then, it’d never been funny. Not really, not once John slowed down and really took a good look in the rearview mirror. He should’ve—that was a lesson he should’ve learned _before_ all of this had started.

“It’s not going to be in Beacon Hills,” he muttered.

“Because I can’t see that you’re gonna be happy, with the way we’re going. And I want you to be happy too,” Stiles went on, apparently not hearing him. “And, also, this is just clearly not working, with Chris back there, and God, Dad, if you think you have to start up with _necromancy_ , and don’t even, I know you’d only do that if it was literally all you had and it’s not part of some kind of crazy scheme and I have no idea why you’d think I would believe for a second you’re turning into a Marvel villain—”

John pressed his fingers against his eyelids. “I’m not losing my mind like your grandfather and I’m not going to toss myself into a fire.”

“Oh. Oh, well, good, glad that’s cleared up right away,” Stiles said, his voice shaking more than his stab at smart-assery could cover up.

“He died right after saying somebody was here for you, and I need to know what the hell it is this time and with that kind of stab wound, I…I don’t feel bad about that either. I probably will later,” John said, taking his hand down. The family was gone, when he looked out the window. He stared for a moment, then gave himself a hard shake and looked at his real, actual son.

Stiles didn’t totally know what John meant, and he wanted to ask about it. He started to, a couple times, and then cut himself off. Almost went back to the notebook once, before he finally set his shoulders and reached over and poked John in the arm. “Well, if he’s the one after us, this way we can chew him out. And if he’s not, there are tons of worse ways to come back from the dead than as a familiar and I can totally put together a Powerpoint for him. I mean, hey, he gets to see his family again this way, and we can work out personal-boundary rules or something. I can look all that up.”

“Kid, I appreciate you trying, but this isn’t…anyway, I’ll deal with it,” John muttered. He let Stiles grin at him for a second, his kid who could take the kind of bullshit that got thrown at them and still make it into an extra-credit research paper. It reminded him that things weren’t over yet. “But Beacon Hills isn’t going to answer anything.”

“Well, how do you know? I keep having visions about people there, and Granddad did too, and Mom—”

“Look, even if it turns out the visions are all because of some—some demon there, or something like that, that’s not the problem. That’s not why your mother died the way she did, it’s not why your grandfather did what he did, and if the whole point is to do something different…” John sighed. Then made himself straighten up, seeing the way Stiles’ face was starting to close up. “I’m not just trying to shut you up again, Stiles. I just…just give me a second. I’m trying to say this right.”

For a second, Stiles wasn’t going to give him that chance. His kid had theories, and wanted to throw them out there and see which one stuck, and John braced himself. And then…Stiles bit his lip. It was hard, John could read that in how much the kid was fidgeting, but Stiles gave him a short nod.

“It’s not really the…the supernatural part of this, as far as I can tell. It’s the change part. Your mom and your grandfather, they both knew what they were doing wasn’t working, but they…couldn’t change it. And all the visions in the world don’t matter if you can’t act on them, right?” John said after a long moment. He pressed his lips together, watching Stiles’ face. “I think your mom knew something was wrong a lot earlier than when we finally saw a doctor for her. It’s why I just—didn’t want to look at her stuff afterward, why I wouldn’t let you pull anything off her Facebook or anything else. I didn’t want to know for sure, because then I couldn’t pretend it wasn’t my fault.”

“What? Dad, it was totally not—”

“I didn’t want to leave town,” John went on. He snorted and glanced away from Stiles, into the back of the SUV. Chris could have been sitting up with a gun pointed at John and John wouldn’t have noticed, for all that John was actually paying attention to that. “My job. I was so busy working on my career—there is no way she didn’t know about all the stuff going on in that town, Stiles. You know that. But she made herself keep her head down, for me. She must have ignored so much—and the disease, I think that just was another thing. You know how she was, when she really put her mind to something, she could make anything work. And she…she didn’t want to see.”

Stiles sucked in his breath.

John wasn’t done yet, and if he let Stiles jump in, he might not get this done. He wasn’t so good as his wife had been about these things, he’d never not known that. “Your grandfather, I think he just never got over her. Look, I’m sure he saw things, and much as he drove me up the wall, I do think he wanted you and me to survive. I don’t think he was trying to get me killed, I think he just wasn’t thinking straight—he just couldn’t do it anymore. And he didn’t know what else to do except what he’d always done. So it’s not that I hate the town, Stiles. It’s just…I fucked it up there. That’s why I keep avoiding it.”

“Okay, well…that doesn’t mean you’re going to fuck it up again,” Stiles said. Rolling his mouth a little awkwardly around the ‘fuck,’ then braving it out as John stared at him. “Listen, Dad. If we still don’t know how to do this, and we’re going to mess it up anywhere, not just there, and—”

“Why do you want to go back?” John said. “I’m just asking, by the way. It can’t just be Scott—I know I’ve been bad at that too, but I can get you to see him more and it doesn’t have to be there.”

Stiles blinked hard, and for a moment John thought his son might actually not have an answer. But then Stiles put back his shoulders and raised his chin, and John realized he’d worked this all out a long time ago, and had just been too nervous to bring it up.

“Because even if it’s not the reason Mom and Granddad did what they did, I still think we might learn something useful. And while we’re looking, we can help people _and_ a lot of them know so we don’t have to do all the cover-up ourselves, and…” Stiles faltered for a moment “…and I just still think it’s home. I know that’s weird, but all the other places we’ve lived in, they’re not home, and…what do we have to lose, anyway? I mean, devil you know, right?”

“Yeah, well…” He could have poked holes in that, but John found that he didn’t really want to. And he understood what Stiles meant, since honestly, when he let himself think about it, he felt the same way. It made no sense whatsoever, but he did.

“It’s definitely not about just going back for a do-over. We’re not going to do that. We’re going to do this our way,” Stiles said. 

His voice was getting loud again. John looked over, saw the strain in his son’s face, and wondered, not for the first time, what kind of father had to get that kind of pep talk from his kid.

One who didn’t pull his head out of his ass when somebody pointed that out to him, he thought a moment later. He took a breath, then let it out. “Okay. Yeah, well, at this point, why not?”

“Oh…oh! Okay!” Stiles bounced in his seat for a moment, then stopped so suddenly he banged his elbow against the window. He grabbed at his arm, looking sheepish, and John felt his face relax into a tired smile. “Um, so…look, Dad, awesome isn’t the right word, but…I do think it’ll be good to just—just stop moving so much. People are gonna come after us, we’ll deal with them—it’s not normal but look, I think we can make it work.”

John sighed. “Yeah, we will,” he said, finally making himself look into the back and actually see the body lying there.

Stiles caught on and sobered. “He was pretty okay to me,” he said, and then hesitated. “I mean…if he’s hunting us, then he’s an idiot since he already saw what you can do. But when Granddad dragged you off, he was…he did help. He seems like somebody who’s not just in this for the kill. He told me at one point he had problems knowing how to talk about supernatural stuff with his daughter.”

“Well, we’ll give him a chance to talk first,” John said. He glanced at the car clock, then reached into his wallet and pulled out a couple twenties to give to Stiles. “And we might as well go into this with full stomachs, so run over there and get me two Chili Dawg Ultimates. I’ll watch you go.”

“One Chili Dawg Special and a Farmer Salad, got it,” Stiles said.

John twisted back, but Stiles was already halfway out of the car. For a second John was annoyed, and then he was…going to just take the sign that his kid was getting back to normal, and buy himself a damn Ultimate later. Hell. The things he gave up, he thought wryly, getting out of his seat and squeezing into the back and squatting right by Chris’ head.

He waited another minute, then took out a vial and uncapped it as he held it under Chris’ nose. “Hey,” he said as Chris sneezed, choked, and opened bleary eyes. “So let’s talk about how we’re going to run this so I don’t have to do something, and then you can call your daughter for the night. Sound good?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My head-canon is Scott is half-Mexican through Melissa, because of Tyler Posey's background and because Scott needs all the help he can get in moving away from bland whitebread hero.


	21. Now

Chris stays with Talia, leaving Peter to walk back to his car on his own.

Well, unaccompanied, at any rate. Peter’s hardly alone when the woods are filled with bumbling, incompetent fools dogging his every step. Not only that, they’re running relay, so that by the time he finally manages to tune out one idiot’s clumsy crashing through the underbrush, he’s presented with a completely new pattern of ineptitude. “I’d be truly amazed at the diversity of failure in this pack if I wasn’t busy calculating the accompanying reduction in life expectancy,” he mutters as he emerges near the bird lodge. “Honestly, if the idea’s to persuade me to not kill anyone, it’s clearly missed its mark.”

The only one in sight is Braeden, who is busy squatting with her phone over a series of bark chips. She doesn’t look up as Peter nears her, but just picks up and puts down this or that chip. Then she settles on one, inserts it into a little plastic bag, and kicks the other chips into the leaf-litter.

“John?” Peter sighs.

“Doesn’t have me working on you,” Braeden says, still not looking up. She tucks the plastic baggie into a pocket and then starts texting someone on her phone. “And you’re not looking for him.”

“Would you care at all if I told you my sister and Chris are now headed John’s way?” Peter asks.

“Not really. John figured that’d happen,” Braeden says. “You finally going to see Lydia?”

Braeden showed up a couple years ago courtesy of some of John’s old government contacts, and objectively, she’s a good asset: knowledgeable, coolheaded, uninterested in taking any side but the side that will keep them alive. Subjectively, Peter would rather snort powdered wolfsbane than have her as an official packmate, if only because she refuses to show any emotion whatsoever in connection with always being right about them. She doesn’t seem to enjoy it or hate it, and not only is that inhuman, it’s just horribly unfair. Even Talia doesn’t have Braeden’s hit rate.

That said, Peter isn’t going to be able to do anything about that today, and unlike any of the Argents, Braeden actually does answer the question asked of her. Infuriating, but at least it doesn’t waste any more of Peter’s time. “Where?” Peter sighs.

“With Stiles,” Braeden says. She glances up briefly, but then her phone vibrates and she looks back at it. She continues texting one-handed as she stands up. “He’s probably home by now. He was going to go find his dad, but Scott stalled him till Lydia showed up. They were talking about picking up something to eat but if that happened, Scott probably dropped him and Lydia off and went to get the food himself so nobody would die.”

“Stiles doesn’t kill people just because he’s depressed,” Peter says.

“No, but Lydia tries to kill people when Stiles is depressed,” Braeden says. 

Fair point, Peter has to admit. He nods to Braeden, who pockets her phone and ducks back into the blind, and then gets into his car.

A couple quick texts confirm Braeden’s account. Derek, who’d found his way back to Scott, also complains that he’s already paid for the food and the place had been closing when they’d gotten there so Scott had had to charm them into staying long enough to make Stiles a Meatball King so can Peter just wait till they can hand it off to him in the parking lot? Does Peter have to come and freak people out so that they slam down the security grill in Derek’s face before the food is ready?

Peter does not have to come to the drive-through, and he also doesn’t understand where some of Derek’s rants come from. The _one_ time that had happened, Peter hadn’t been trying to order food for Stiles—he’d been legitimately breaking in and just hadn’t realized anyone was still inside, because they’d been in a walk-in freezer with walls thick enough to hide their heartbeat.

“Well, you came out of there with a chopped salad and Stiles made a point of eating it while Scott’s dad was trying to secure the scene for the sheriff, so I think in this case, people are entirely justified in getting that impression,” Lydia says, while glaring down at him from five steps up the staircase to his and Stiles’ apartment.

Technically, it’s only Peter’s, but for all practical matters except John damaging himself so badly he can’t hide it from Stiles, Stiles treats it as his. Still, out of an abundance of caution, and also to stem the number of texts from his nephew, Peter had told Derek he’d meet them at the west staircase of his building, whereupon Derek had confirmed that would work. And Peter will fully admit that finding out Stiles still had gone to their place had made him completely forget Derek’s chronic failure to keep his mouth shut.

“Oh, no, Derek told me that you were coming. And I mean that as in Derek was not mind-controlled, blackmailed, or guilt-tripped into it,” Lydia says. She reseats her crossed arms against her chest as if she’s using her metallic Chanel jacket for a nail-sharpener. “No, he assessed the situation, thought seriously about it, and _then_ called me.”

“And I am sure he will appreciate the fact that you are leaving him with no deniability whatsoever, and will take his lesson to heart the next time I see him,” Peter drawls, with his most tooth-baring smile.

Lydia rolls her eyes. “The next time you see him is going to be in ten minutes when Stiles smells the meatballs and runs out here, and if you think murdering family in front of him is going to make up for your behavior earlier, I should just put you out of your misery right now.”

Peter starts to point out the number of inherently false assumptions in that statement, starting with how she thinks she _can_ actually kill him, and then—he doesn’t hear or see anything, but werewolf senses extend beyond just the basic five. Stiles is watching from somewhere, he can feel it, and this annoying woman is Stiles’ other best friend. “All right,” he says, taking a deep breath instead. “Let’s not waste any more time with pleasantries. What do you want? And don’t say Stiles and me breaking up—”

“Do I look like your nieces or nephew,” Lydia says flatly. She shifts her weight, the tip of her stiletto screeching softly against the metal step. “I know a lost cause when I see one, and for whatever reason, he’s got his heart set on you. I really can’t understand why, considering what a complete idiot you are—”

“I’m going to apologize to him,” Peter says through his teeth, and the fact that he’s gritting them has absolutely nothing to do with said planned apology.

“For what? Setting him off in the woods?” Lydia scoffs. She rolls her eyes again, with an emphasizing toss of her hair over one shoulder. “My God, you don’t even know why I’m out here, do you?”

Peter opens his mouth. Then, with an extreme application of willpower, shuts it and shuts it without any part of her body in it. “Enlighten me.”

“You were supposed to talk to me…” Lydia pulls out her phone, nails clacking against the crystal-studded back, and consults it “…four and a half hours ago. And don’t tell me you had no idea. I know for a fact that John mentioned it, and when you didn’t _take the hint_ , I went out of my way to talk to _Talia_ when you know very well that her idea of accessorizing gives me hives—”

“Lydia, just get to the point,” Peter snaps. He takes a step up towards her, then pauses as a taser suddenly emerges in her hand. For a moment he thinks about rushing her anyway—she might have the high ground but the open-air stairwell gives him plenty of maneuvering space—and then he sighs and drops back. He’s tired, and Stiles knows he’s here, and he’s spent most of the day with no idea what’s on his life-mate’s mind. Sometimes even he’s just done with games. “What do you want from me, and when do you want it, and then we can just set an appointment and be done with it.”

She looks at him for a few seconds, her lips still half-open around the rest of her rant. Her brows are pinched; oddly, she seems confused. Then she retreats into more familiar contempt, rolling her eyes as she puts away her taser. “That is exactly why you’re here, you idiot. You and your family, you’re constantly making it about everything _but_ the actual problem.”

“Is it an apology that I didn’t pay homage to you earlier?” Peter sighs.

“No, you moron,” Lydia says. She twists halfway around and goes up a step, her heels cracking like gunshots, and then looks back at him. “Only you would think this is about _my_ ego.”

Peter is supposed to pick up the food in the lot below, so he stays where he is. “Well, given our history, I don’t think that’s an unfair concern.”

“Our history isn’t actually about the fact that you people _knew_ Blackwood was still hunting down his old pack members and didn’t tell Aiden or me or my mother, so _Stiles_ ended up at the hospital with Aiden. Or about your thinking I’m going to steal Stiles away due to our twin magical speaking-to-the-dead powers, which, really, you’ve been dating him for _two years_ ,” Lydia tosses scornfully over her shoulder. 

She goes up another step, then glares at Peter so pointedly that he resigns himself to following and hoping when his nephew shows up, Derek retains enough brains to drop the food off at the front door and doesn’t just wander around the parking lot, sending angry texts about Peter wasting his time. “I think it is, actually.”

“It’s completely irrelevant, anyway. The actual point is, I’m his friend, and he’s upset, and you’re dating him, and instead of actually trying to figure out what the problem is, you’ve been running all over this stupid town trying to figure out what the _town’s_ problem is. God, and you’re always on Scott’s back for that.” Third step up, Lydia completely turns her back on Peter and marches the rest of the way to the apartment without looking at him. “Stiles told me his grandfather’s death has been bugging him again.”

“Which is why Talia and I have been looking into that. I understand the Ghost Riders have a nasty habit of dragging up alternative histories around family events,” Peter says, with what he thinks is commendable calm. He barely even growls. “About that—this talk of a woman in black, and the ghost that you two banished at the old factory—”

Lydia keeps walking past the correct door. She’s almost halfway to the next unit when Peter clears his throat, but she pivots as if she’d been expecting him to do that. And looks at him as if he’d been late, to boot. “Well, obviously his mother’s bothering him too.”

Peter had pulled up short, not wanting to go past the door himself, and at that he puts his hand out and flattens his palm against the jamb. Protective sigils from several different magical disciplines immediately glow all around their door. Relieved, Peter removes his hand and steps back, and only then notices the way Lydia’s looking at him.

“The ghost in the factory was a _ghost_. You people, you just don’t get—I don’t even know why I’m trying,” Lydia spits at him. She starts to turn, then hitches her shoulders and pauses; Peter hadn’t done it, as far as he can tell, and he hadn’t heard anything else. Then Lydia looks back at him. “He’s a psychopomp, Peter.”

“Yes, I’m aware,” Peter says acidly. 

“Well, you don’t act like it. He’s _used_ to it, get that through your head—it’s not his powers that bother him. And yes, we have demonic cowboys running around causing psychological trauma, but it’s Beacon Hills and when _doesn’t_ that happen,” Lydia says. She stares at him for a long moment, then leans back and takes a deep breath, with movements so deliberate that it’s clearly to make a point to him rather than to settle any internal turmoil of hers. “He’s upset about his family, and doesn’t know how to talk about it, and it might be _useful_ , Peter, if you really thought about that rather than getting distracted by all of the drama around here. Because honestly? This isn’t one of those times you can just kill your way out of it.”

And with that, Lydia righteously swishes her hair between them and clicks off down the hall. She’s within two yards of the elevator when the blare of a car horn drifts in from the parking lot, stopping both her and Peter’s belated response. Then Derek’s distinctive annoyed call fills the air, closely followed by the equally unmistakable jumble of Allison and Scott trying to shush him.

“Oh, for God’s sake, I told him I was dealing with you. Can he not think to take the service stairs?” Lydia says, about-facing and clacking the opposite away. She doesn’t slow down as she passes Peter. “No, you go in. _I_ will get the food, because I didn’t just use up an entire evening on Stiles-watch just so your hanger issues could drag him to the morgue. Or into Scott’s dad’s office.”

“We have a fully-stocked pantry,” is what Peter is reduced to tossing at her back, exasperated to the point of idiocy. He’s ashamed of himself, and yet, as he gets out his apartment keys, he can’t seem to close his mouth. “I really do not know why everyone thinks the level of homicide around me depends on my—”

The door is already open. A weary-looking Stiles is standing in it, looking at Peter as if he’s half-thinking about grabbing Peter, half-thinking about just bolting for the farthest window in the apartment and shimmying out through it. “I think it was Thanksgiving dinner three years ago.”

“But that wasn’t even about the food,” Peter’s mouth continues, in express contradiction to Peter’s actual wishes. “That was about the fact that it was Thanksgiving and you and your father had just come back from Mexico, and even Scott’s father agreed to put his investigations on hold, and that chimera had the temerity to take over the _supermarket_ , which I wouldn’t even have been at if—”

“—if Cora and Erica and Isaac hadn’t accidentally eaten the Polish sausage Talia was gonna use for the stuffing, and you really wanted to get the right kind,” Stiles finishes with a sympathetic nod. “So it wasn’t you not getting to eat for eight hours, it was you dealing with an idiot for eight hours and then all the meat was spoiled because the power went out during the fight, and then, when we finally sat down to dinner, they interrupted dessert because the sheriff did _not_ listen to Melissa about how to bag up corpses to avoid credits-scene resurrections. It’s rage about incompetence that just happened to impact food, not the food itself.”

“ _Exactly_ ,” Peter says, the relief in his voice chasing after the exasperated sigh.

Stiles snorts and slouches against the doorway, and for a moment, they understand each other perfectly.

It’s unfortunate they’re both too intelligent to ever just take refuge in ignorance, Peter thinks as he watches the almost-smile fade off Stiles’ face, as he feels the tension creep back into his shoulders. He takes a breath, intending to speak first, and then…Stiles shifts slightly, barely a movement, and a neutral one at that, but it’s enough to make Peter pause.

“I’ve been informed, with statistics to back it up, that I’m being confrontation-averse again, and since you’re all about using confrontations as smoke-screens, I have to stop playing into that,” Stiles finally says.

Peter presses his lips together. “I am going to talk to that—”

“Okay, come on, she’ll slaughter you,” Stiles sighs. He steps back, one hand still touching the jamb. “I mean, psychologically, which you and I both know is worse than physically anyway. So…”

“What happened earlier,” Peter says abruptly. He eases himself onto the threshold, but doesn’t quite cross it. “I—”

“I ditched you for lunch and it’s Thursday lunch, I could’ve at least told you the truth,” Stiles says. He takes another step back, finally releasing the doorway, and then looks at Peter, half his lower lip briefly slipping under his teeth. “Yeah, so, you getting me pissed off so I didn’t go after _you_ is shitty too, especially since Dad’s working through some stuff right now and he really doesn’t need to have to go kidnap you out of trouble again—”

“Stiles,” Peter says.

“And yeah, I know, that was really you being all worried Talia was being weirdly obsessed with some crazy not-a-hunter hunter guy and his bratty little seer kid, so you had a good reason for not picking up on the actual hunters stalking you—”

Peter steps fully into the apartment and pushes the door shut behind him. The catch of it on the lock makes Stiles stop, even before Peter clears his throat. “Stiles.”

“Yeah?” Stiles says, not quite hiding his shakiness.

“I’m sorry,” Peter says, and then he breathes out.

For a second Stiles stands poised for two different directions. Then he huffs, and twists away, towards their kitchen, one hand coming up to rub at the side of his face. “I was an asshole about lunch,” he says. “I mean, it wasn’t even—wasn’t really that big of a deal, I don’t know why I didn’t just…I don’t know. I just kind of let this one blow up on me, and I’m the one who’s supposed to see the future. Asshole, like I said.”

“You can’t control what you see,” Peter says. 

He always says that when Stiles gets this way, even though Stiles knows it far better than himself. He doesn’t say it for the meaning, but for the way it starts them on a routine that’s well-worn not because they’re stuck in a rut, but because it helps get things comfortable again. But just because he’s reusing it doesn’t mean he doesn’t pay attention, and he does pick up the way Stiles stiffens a little.

“We actually have food,” Stiles says, walking into the kitchen. “We have that leftover roast beef, could do sandwiches. I just figured Scott and Derek would feel better if they could get me something.”

“Sandwiches it is,” Peter says, still keeping an eye on the man.

He gets out the roast beef, while Stiles gets out the bread and is poking around to find an onion when there’s a knock on the door. Stiles makes an apologetic face at Peter, but goes to answer it anyway, and it’s hardly a surprise when he comes back with a still faintly-steaming bag of carryout.

“Derek seemed to want to make really sure you’re not grumpy tonight,” Stiles says, putting it down on the table.

“He called Lydia down on me,” Peter says. He did slice some of the roast beef, but it’ll do just as well on a platter with some cornichons and mustard as in an actual sandwich, so he puts the bread away. Then assembles his plate and sits down as Stiles semi-guiltily digs into the carryout bag. “Also, his mother’s running around after your father, and Laura’s busy decoying Lydia’s mother away from it. He does have courage, I’ll give him that, but he still has no idea how to deal with fallout.”

Stiles makes another face. “So did you leave Chris out there?”

“He’s with Talia,” Peter says. “They’re both going to pin down your father at some point tonight, I believe.”

“Oh. Okay, well, Chris usually keeps it from getting too crazy…Dad probably needs somebody to just grab him, anyway,” Stiles says. He takes a healthy bite out of a meatball, but then drops it on his plate and aimlessly rolls it around, using his other hand to prop up his head. “So…”

Part of Peter wants just divert the conversation to safer subjects. It’s so easy to fall into sync with Stiles that he never wants to throw the gears out—but he will. People may criticize him for it, but those are the same people who can’t keep up, so normally he doesn’t care what they think.

He still doesn’t. He just sometimes finds himself a little envious, no matter how silly and unfounded that feeling is. “Lunch,” he says.

“Yeah.” Stiles takes a deep breath. “Yeah, so…I had a vision, one I didn’t tell you about. It was about you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We are in fact nearing the end! Despite my urge to throw in every anecdote I can think of for times when the morgue, the local embalmers, and the local police would have all gladly fed Peter a candy bar if it'd saved them the late-night body call. Because he does have hanger issues.
> 
> Braeden and Jordan and Tara totally get together for happy hour in the early hours of every morning to facepalm at the shenanigans around them.


	22. Then

All things considered, Chris took his conversion into a familiar fairly well. He listened to what John had to say, looked pissed off at a couple points but otherwise kept his responses to five questions, two of which had to do with when and how he could contact his family and let them know what had happened to him. And then, after he’d called his daughter, he and John went out and took care of the black-magic cult that’d been tracking down Stiles in order to make some kind of potion from Stiles’ eyeballs. Because somehow, people just couldn’t understand why that might cause other people to get comfortable with homicide.

“I’d like to know how in hell they found us in the first place,” John muttered, scooping another shovelful of dirt into the hole. “It’s not like we advertise.”

Chris straightened up from throwing in his shovelful and looked at John. They both had shirts wrapped around their noses and mouths to cut the smell, but the part of Chris’ face that was still showing was communicating enough skepticism to overcome the mask.

“It’s not like we advertise my _son_ ,” John corrected himself. Then stood back to catch his breath, and judge how much more dirt they had to shift before he could try a grass-regrowth spell. “And if we’re talking about me, I still don’t see how the hell that gets them to thinking they can kill and mutilate a teenage boy without consequences.”

Chris didn’t say anything, just went back to shoveling dirt, but for some reason John felt like the man was still eyeing him up when he wasn’t looking. He tried to catch Chris at it, and then realized somewhere around them loading their tools back into the car that that was stupid and immature, and more importantly, not going to get him an explanation.

It was a cold enough night that once they were back in the car, John needed to let it warm up for a few minutes. He could’ve sped it up with magic, except for the fact that at this point, he was running on coffee and his bad temper and if he did one more spell, he’d probably wake up with Stiles at his side, alternating between lecturing him and doing all the spells John had warned him off of ‘since they’re apparently in our rotation now, Dad.’ And that’d be if John was lucky.

So yeah, might as well deal with the hard questions, now that John was too tired to come up with distractions. “Your father—”

“Dead.” Chris had his hand pushed out in front of him and appeared to be working on controlling the degree to which his skin would go shimmery and also, they’d discovered mid-fight, knife-proof. “Really dead. We spent a solid week running through literally everything in the books making sure.”

John pursed his lips and looked at the dashboard. He kind of wanted—no, he really wanted to fall asleep, and wake up next year. He’d started off as normal baseline human, but according to Stiles, having extrasensory powers didn’t automatically include increased spellcasting stamina, so he had to wonder how necromancers stayed awake long enough to actually _do_ anything. “He came back again? What—never mind. I was actually going to ask if we were settled there.”

Chris glanced over.

“I mean—”

“Yeah, I know what you meant.” The shimmer went away and Chris’ skin could crease again, which it did around his eyes and his slightly-twisted mouth. For a moment he looked like he wanted to go back to being the other way, and then he sighed. “I’m not interested in fighting you over him.”

“Okay,” John said, nodding. He pushed one hand over his face, trying to remember…God, he was tired if he couldn’t even remember why somebody might want to kill him. “Look, for the record, it’s not like I have it in for you, or for your family. This whole…thing, I don’t have any intention of—of making it stick.”

“So I’m going back to being dead?” Chris said. Mostly flat, but his voice rose a little at the end.

“What? No, I just—this thing about you now being bound to me, and all—I don’t even do this for a living, I just do it—I didn’t even want to do it. You just showed up and said my son’s name and died and I needed to know what the hell we’d gotten into this time, and…all I’m trying to say is, you can go on back to your wife and daughter and I’ll…mail you vials of blood once a month. I think that’s how often you’ll need it from me,” John said, grimacing. He needed to look that up when he got home. That, and make sure Stiles had packed for that school trip, and shit, come to think of it, they were out of bread. “Something like that.”

Chris was silent for a moment. “You’re gonna mail me blood. You literally raised me from the dead with necromancy, and you don’t see how that could go wrong?”

“Fine, FedEx and I’ll put hexes on the package,” John said. Then slouched in his seat and rubbed at his eyes, and decided to stop pretending like he was being competent anymore. “I’m sorry I just did that to you. I didn’t want to be somebody who wants someone to literally have to obey me in order to live, but I did do that to you, and I’m not going to pretend I’m better than I am. It wasn’t about saving your life, it was about what you knew, and that’s coldblooded and I—can’t undo it, unless you _do_ want to be dead again.”

“Well, per the old code, that should be what I’m saying right about now,” Chris muttered. When John looked over at him, he was staring out the window. Then he noticed John and startled a little, which was an odd reaction to have. Even odder, he continued to look uncomfortable. He started to move his arm, but misjudged where his hand was and hit it against the window, and something about that deeply embarrassed him. “You weren’t…it’s an ongoing argument in my family.”

“Killing yourself if you…get caught?” John tried.

Chris made a face. “If you get turned into something we’re supposed to be hunting. My…Victoria, she was bitten by a…look, why I was up here in the first place. That cult, they’re connected to my sister, who started messing around with the same magic my father did and turned herself into some kind of necromancer-werejaguar thing. We’ve been hunting _her_ down, and in the middle of it Victoria got bitten by a werewolf and technically she should’ve killed herself but Allison didn’t want that.”

The way Chris said that, he sounded equal parts proud and sad, with a lingering undertone of confusion. He genuinely didn’t see what was weird about his wife and his daughter having different opinions on suicide there.

It was kind of like the way Mieczyslaw would talk, John suddenly thought. Then tried to grimace the thought out of his head because one, he didn’t like thinking about Mieczyslaw, and two, he’d just significantly fucked with Chris’ life and was in no position to make moral judgments. And three, God, but he didn’t like being reminded of Mieczyslaw.

“We’re not anti-supernatural, all right? We’re—the point behind what we do, it’s to hunt down what’s trying to hunt people. It’s not just to kill for the hell of it,” Chris went on, his voice rising a little. He seemed to have taken John’s expression as criticism. “And the worst monsters are the ones who used to be on the other side. Look at my own father, and now my sister. Victoria just didn’t want to end up being used against her own family—we didn’t know, with what my sister’s done to herself, if that’d—”

“Okay, okay, look, that’s not what I…your family’s your family,” John interrupted, seeing how worked-up the other man was getting. He started to raise his hand, but Chris had already stopped talking so he just let it fall back against his seat. “Anyway, you worked it out, it sounds like.”

Chris’ expression went funny, flattening out while still giving the impression of movement, like it was glitching in the middle of changing. His eyes dropped, deliberately enough that John tensed up—but he wasn’t pulling out a weapon, just making an awkward gesture with his left hand. “Well, we’re separated,” he muttered.

John…thought he knew what Chris meant, but he was tired. And if he’d gotten the wrong idea, it was not really the kind of thing he wanted to flag to Chris.

“Victoria and me. She’s gotten over being a werewolf—we figured out how to break the initial pack-bond so Kate wouldn’t have any hold over her—but she still thinks I should never have let Allison know she was thinking about killing herself,” Chris went on after a moment. Still muttering, looking like this was the last thing he wanted to explain, but also like he was determined to explain anyway. “And if you’re a hunter and you can’t trust someone to keep a secret…it’s your face.”

“What?” John said.

“Your face,” Chris said, flipping his fingers a little at John. “You keep looking like you think I’m going to tell you everybody died, and it’s—I didn’t even think you knew us—knew me long enough to give a damn.”

John bit back a curse, then slouched down and rubbed at his goddamn face. “No, it’s just living with my father-in-law, I’m just used to…anyway.”

“Yeah, look, about him,” Chris started. Then hesitated. He checked John for something, wasn’t totally convinced it wasn’t there, and went on as if his words were sticks he was poking through snow to find the deep spot. “And your kid. What I said, the whole thing about needing to keep an eye on you, and right after your father-in-law had given his life to stop my father, that was—I was out of line.”

“I just raised you from the dead,” John said after a few seconds of silence had passed. “You need a drop of my blood every week to stay alive now. I killed your father _twice_. And I don’t think I’ve ever apologized for any of that.”

Chris blinked. “I thought that was what this is?”

“I—well, I was trying, but I don’t think I’d actually gotten there yet.” John shuffled himself in his seat, because just getting out of the car and walking away wasn’t an option, no matter what his nerves thought. “Okay, I—”

“Look, I get why you did it. I mean, if I’m honest, I probably made sure those were my last words so that you would do…something.” Then Chris checked John’s expression. He sagged a little. “Probably not this specifically, but close enough that I’m not…so that’s not it either. Are you…are you actually judging me for having this reaction?”

John grimaced. “I’m trying not—I wasn’t born into this, all right? I’ve been doing this—I’ve still been doing this for less time than I was a cop. Goddamn it, I’m an asshole, okay? And I just got you stuck with me, and I’m sorry. Can we leave it at that?”

Just then the engine grumbled a little against the brakes, reminding John about how long they’d been sitting here. He was so glad for something to do that he nearly put the car into reverse instead of drive and had to jerk the gearshift, and then he set the car to shuddering again as he hauled the wheel around. Chris jammed his elbows back, then grabbed at the above-door handle and hung on. Didn’t say anything, just looked over once they were on the road, brow slightly cocked.

“It’s forty minutes back,” John said.

The other man kept looking at him, though after a few more minutes, he got the sense that Chris was easing off on the death-grip. John just kept his own hands on the wheel and his eyes on the road, and concentrated on what he was doing.

“I think we can work something out,” Chris finally said, twenty-five minutes later.

“Something that doesn’t end in one of us dying?” John said.

Chris nodded. He’d let go of the handle and his hands were resting easy in his lap, and he was even looking out at the scenery. “Yeah. Sounds good to me, anyway.”

“Good.” John breathed. He was still tired, and in a mess, and still had to figure out what to do about the way life had just upended itself yet again. But he could have a second, he figured.

“You all right?”

“What?”

For a second Chris didn’t seem like he was going to pursue it. But then he inhaled the way you usually did when stepping into a room with a rough conversation ahead of you, and twisted around to fully look at John. “Are you all right?” he said. “You look…”

“I just had to kill three people who wanted to drink my son’s eyeballs,” John pointed out.

“Okay, yeah, I get that, but even with that, you look…listen, it’s not like I can leave till morning anyway. Is there something else going on?” Chris asked.

“You’re asking me that,” John said.

“Well, I think I’m one of the few people in the world who could legitimately understand any answer you could give to that,” Chris said, starting to sound a little touchy. He shifted in his seat, still eyeing John. “I know we don’t actually know each other well, but we’re going to have to now, and you just…look like maybe you could use a hand. And that mess back there’s partly my family’s fault anyway.”

This was weird, popped into John’s head, and then he had to really fight to not laugh. The thing was, it was weird, and it’d been weird for years and years and he just didn’t know why now, of all times, was when he was going to get around to realizing it. 

Jesus, he wanted to stop. And he still had to get back home and settle Stiles down and get onto figuring out the next part of their lives, because Stiles wanted to move back to Beacon Hills. With Stiles’ gifts and Claudia and Mieczyslaw’s deaths and all the other insanity that John had somehow missed when he’d goddamn applied for the deputy slot there, and John just…wanted to stop. “I just kind of see my wife’s point,” John muttered.

“What?”

This was not a conversation he should be having, John thought. And then he heaved out a breath and rolled his eyes at himself, because what the hell, Chris literally wasn’t able to hurt him. “Look, my wife, she was going to die anyway, but she made it a hell of a lot harder going out because she just wanted to pretend all this supernatural stuff didn’t exist. But it does, so my father-in-law, he comes in and wises me up, and I spend the next seven years running around after it, and he kills himself because that is literally the only way you ever get a vacation from this, and I just…you ever just want a weekend? Just sack out with a beer and a football game?”

“I’m more of a hockey fan,” Chris said.

“What?”

“I’m Canadian, technically,” Chris said. This embarrassed him, oddly enough, and he jerked his shoulders a few times before he went on. “Born there, lived here most of my life, but hockey’s…anyway, yeah, I know what you mean. You know most of us don’t go it alone like you do, right?”

“What?” John said again.

Chris hesitated, frowning. It wasn’t exactly like he thought John was offended—which wasn’t what John was—but he was definitely concerned about a negative reception. “We do this in groups. Hunters have teams. Werewolves have packs. Somebody likes hunting solo, that’s actually a red flag that somebody needs to check in and make sure you haven’t gotten in too deep, and that’s the same no matter what side you’re on. This stuff is _hard_ , John. It does drive people crazy. We all know that, and that’s why you make sure you can watch out for each other.”

“Well, nobody told _me_ ,” John said before he could help it.

“Your father-in-law sounded like he had some issues,” Chris agreed. Then he almost-grimaced, catching the way John glanced at him. “Stiles…had a lot to say about him, when I was watching him.”

“Oh. Yeah, he would.” John actually hadn’t talked much with Stiles about Chris and what had happened there. He’d just asked after the timeline of events and made sure that Chris hadn’t done anything John needed to deal with, and Stiles hadn’t really volunteered much outside of that, which John had taken to mean there wasn’t anything interesting to go over.

But then, he and Stiles had had a pretty complicated relationship, so if they wanted to talk about red flags and missing them…John needed a break just to sort that out properly. Hell.

“You need to go left here,” Chris said.

“What?” John said, then spotted the upcoming left-turn lane. “Shit.”

He twisted into it barely in time, though since it was so late, he at least didn’t have any witnesses to the shitty driving. When the car settled, he flopped back in his seat, staring at the…shit, the light was green. He jerked back up and took the turn, and then shut up till they were pulling into the driveway of the rental and he could be sure there would be no more opportunities to fuck up his driving.

“I’m just saying,” Chris started. Then paused long enough for them to get out of the car and unload most of the tools. At that point, he could have sat down, or had John let him into the house, but he stood there instead and made sure he caught John’s eye. “I’m just saying, if there’s something you’re dealing with, you actually have a couple people who owe you favors at this point.”

“I didn’t do it for that,” John snapped. He started for the door to the house, then stepped back. “I did it for—I wasn’t doing it for any of you, because I don’t know you enough for that, but I wasn’t doing it for—I wasn’t pulling some sort of long con like—”

Like Mieczyslaw, he almost said, and because he stopped himself, Chris stepped up. “Okay, wrong way to put it,” he said, hands half-raised as if John had a weapon on him. “I’m not trying to push here, I’m just trying to say…if you—”

“Need help. Yeah, I heard you.” John did take the knob at that point. He got out his keys and unlocked the door, then stepped into the little foyer that doubled as a laundry room. Then moved aside for Chris to follow. “I need to eat and sleep. And tell my _son_ it’s not worth it to muck with the soundproofing spells if—”

There was a muffled thump from upstairs; Chris looked sympathetic.

“I’m not killing anybody else tonight, anyway,” John said. He let Chris shut the door, then pushed past the man to make sure all of the magical seals were in place. And then he stopped, fingers still splayed against the wood, and sighed. “Maybe in the morning, I don’t…I just need to sit down. I know we need to talk, just…”

“Yeah. I get it. I’ll…bathroom?” Chris said.

John hooked his head in the right direction, then headed into the kitchen for a bite to eat. He probably shouldn’t just be letting Chris roam around, even with the familiar connection; magic always had loopholes and someone like Chris probably knew them all. But Chris honestly didn’t seem interested in a fight, and for once, John just wanted to let it go.

He ate a sandwich. Chris came in to ask where the linen closet was, and John showed him how the couch folded out and got him set up in the living room, then went upstairs. Stiles immediately poked his head out of his room, questions trying to pop his eyes out of his skull, but after a look at John, he bit his lip and just asked if Chris needed to be permanently worked into the security wards. John told him to do it in the morning, and Stiles looked dubious about it, but suddenly swiveled to give John a tight hug. 

“Not a big deal, I already did some research,” he mumbled into John’s shoulder. “I know, I know, ‘m gonna sleep now.”

John thought about scolding him, and then just laid his hand on Stiles’ head for a second. Then let go, and pushed his kid back into the bedroom before heading to his own.

In the morning, John felt like he’d been hit by a truck and then dragged over a couple miles of gravel. He looked a little like it too; he scowled at himself in the bathroom mirror, then took a hot shower to try and get some flush into his face. Then he headed downstairs to find Stiles running a very tolerant Chris through some kind of checklist about…dietary preferences?

“Sympathetic connection backlash, Dad,” Stiles mumbled, typing furiously. “You said you had to use the catmint instead of the spearmint so I just wanna check that you can still eat Mexican food since Chris is a cilantro sensitive.”

“I’m okay with cilantro, I just don’t love it,” Chris said, frowning. Then he waved John towards the counter, where a plate of pancakes was waiting.

John decided Stiles wasn’t going to be fatal and Chris had offered to help, and left the two of them to it. He took his breakfast out to the living room, where he sat on the corner of the still folded-out couch and ate and really thought about moving back to Beacon Hills. Which was when the doorbell rang.

“Dad?” Stiles said almost in the same instant, with _that_ tone in his voice. “Dad, do _not_ shoot her.”

“Who?” John called back, yanking his hand away from his…actually, he’d forgotten to grab his gun when he’d gotten up, he was still that drained.

“Talia?” Stiles said in an odd tone.

“Oh, _shit_ ,” Chris spat out as he lunged from kitchen through the living room to the front door.

John had been getting up to check on his son, but as Chris blazed by, he reversed course for one step. Then stopped and looked back, but Stiles was already up, wandering out of the kitchen with a queasy but not truly nauseated expression on his face. He caught John’s eye and shook his head: vision was already over. Then resumed looking like he both knew exactly what was on the other side of the door Chris was opening and like he had no idea why it was going down this way.

“I checked in!” Chris snapped through the halfway-open door. He was standing so that he was blocking John’s view of the outside. “We said _I’d_ take this, and you—”

“Well, if you managed to stumble over them, I wasn’t going to just—John!” The top of Talia’s head and her eyes briefly popped over Chris’ shoulder. Then she’d heaved Chris out of the way and came striding into the room, a smile on her face. “John, I am so glad we finally found you and your son.”

“Yeah, considering your brother really messed up there,” Stiles said.

Talia froze mid-step, her mouth half-open. Then she twisted around, and at that point John got between her and Stiles. “Where is he and what happened?” she demanded, flipping from warm welcome to interrogator. “John, I’m not—”

“What, wait, that didn’t already…” Stiles paused and blinked a few times, then grimaced. “No, crap, it _hasn’t_ happened yet. It’s not full moon till two days from—okay, we can get back to Beacon Hills by then—um, Dad?”

Again? was honestly John’s first thought. His second was that this was not the way they’d agreed that they would do this. But then that was always going to be the case, and anyway, that was the wrong fight. He wasn’t going to win that one, and he shouldn’t because it wasn’t even a fight. It just was how life worked for them, and if he kept trying to make it work another way, he’d end up where Claudia and Mieczyslaw had, and he’d promised Stiles it wasn’t going to go that way. 

The right fight, and it’d always been that one and he’d known it at the beginning but had forgotten at some point, was to make sure they had what they needed to make it through. And what they needed had changed, and was probably changing again, but…this was something John did think he could stay on top of.

“I’ll call the school,” John sighed. He let Stiles stare at him in surprise for one second. “You’re calling Mrs. Joyce.”

“Oh! Easy, I’ll just fake a communicable disease, she’s a complete germophobe,” Stiles said, ducking back into the kitchen. “One second! Also let me get my research on banshees!”

“John—“ Talia started, a slight growl in her voice.

“Give him _two_ seconds, would you?” John said. “Then we’ll talk about what your family did now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Witches supposedly had to regularly feed their familiars from so-called 'witches' marks' on their own bodies, i.e. freckles, moles, or basically anything that a witch-hunter could point to.
> 
> Yes, Chris gets to be emotionally less constipated than John for once. Chris and Victoria and Allison all had a chance to sit down and scream it out, and even if it broke up a marriage, it got things out into the open and allowed for alternative views on what is and isn't worth surviving. John's just been Rambo-ing his way through life for the entirety of Stiles' teen years. There might be a little role-reversal going on in this AU.


	23. Now

“Peter,” Stiles says.

Technology is a wonderful thing, and ninety-nine percent of the time Peter fully embraces it. He’s not one of those Luddites who believes you absolutely have to read key magical references in their original paper form, and thus have to have both a library and a psychosis-hold chamber for the inevitable side-effects of regular exposure to books created for the express purpose of perpetuating chaos and malice. An iPad stores just as many volumes, in perfectly usable format, and you can install digital locks to thwart any attempt by the dead to brainwash you into reading particular spells. 

It’s just that when you’re _looking_ for it, a book is considerably easier to sniff out than a tablet.

“Peter,” Stiles says again, partly through a mouth full of meatball.

Especially if you are regularly forced to entertain your hapless blood relatives who don’t seem to know to keep their damned hands _off_ your things, despite years and years of trying to terrorize that lesson into them. Peter honestly doesn’t know why Talia still scolds him for that, considering how Laura, Derek and Cora obviously are _not_ traumatized by him. Not if they keep swiping his iPad to Facetime because they can’t keep their own devices unshattered because _learn to dodge when you’re fighting_. 

There’s a sigh, the sound of gulping, and then Stiles clearing his throat. “Peter, I already coded the entire vision into our database.”

“Just a second, if I can’t find it we can log it on your—oh?” Peter says, turning around.

“Also, it wasn’t actually involving death or Derek or maiming or Derek or betrayal or Derek,” Stiles says from where he’s slouching in the doorway. He sweeps a tolerant gaze over the sofa cushions Peter’s just scattered over the living room floor, then wiggles the dinner plate he’s still carrying. “If it was that kind of vision, I wouldn’t have ditched you, I would’ve ditched lunch so I could get _you_.” 

“Ah,” Peter says. “Well. That’s a useful clarification.”

Stiles winces. That hadn’t actually been the reaction Peter had been going for, but he should have been able to predict it. He starts to get up, but at the same time Stiles puts out his hand as if he’s coming to Peter, and they both freeze.

“Okay, look,” Stiles blurts out first. He waves his plate a little, then startles as if only now remembering there’s food on it. Then he comes into the room and dumps his plate on a side-table on the way to plopping on the couch to Peter’s left. He doesn’t sit so much as fold himself up so his knees are close to shielding his ears, as he crouches his head into Peter’s eye-line. “I know I said earlier it was about your family, but it’s actually not, and I’ve been doing a really terrible job of making that clear and that’s totally on me. I’m just having a—a thing.”

“Well, all right, you can have your things, as I think we’ve discussed in the past,” Peter says after a moment, rocking back slightly so that Stiles’ head isn’t bobbing below his own.

“We have?” Stiles says, blinking, and then he narrows his eyes. He drops an elbow onto his knee and leans out towards Peter so his suspicion is more directed towards Peter’s nose than Peter’s eyes. “Oh, right, we have. Those things.”

This is not an unfamiliar move to Peter, who catches the corners of his mouth trying to turn up. “Yes, of course, _those_ things. As you know, Stiles.”

“That we talked about. At some unspecified time in the past. Because this was all totally worked out and I just forgot the process and it’s all cool, you’re here to refresh my memory with sex,” Stiles says.

“Well, it does have a remarkable success rate with you. And, if I can remind you, we determined previously that if you’re capable of understanding the act you’re consenting to, then inaccurate context for the act is a violation of trust but not nonconsensual,” Peter points out.

“Okay, one, that was a romcom amnesia hypo we debated when I was high on Red Bull, and you know I can’t be held responsible for my ethics when I’m like that. Two, your dick doesn’t actually solve everything, Peter, and—” Stiles abruptly pulls himself back. He looks away, rubbing tiredly at the side of his face, and then back at Peter. “Three, honestly, the next time this happens, do you want to end up running around town bugging literally everybody to find out what’s wrong with me? I mean, c’mon, you hate incompetence.”

A small part of Peter is disappointed, and irrationally frustrated at Stiles for causing it. A much larger part is disappointed in himself, and frustrated at both of them for it, and—Peter makes himself take a breath. If it’s one thing he’s learned in two years of a relationship with Stiles, it’s that the man is unpredictable. Which is part of why Peter values him so; he can trust that Stiles will never, ever fall for the same trick twice. Stiles knows his tricks that well—and stays with him anyway, and any judgment involved is usually not over the _tricks_.

“That’s not the issue, and we both know that,” Peter says bluntly. He waits for Stiles to jerk back around and look him in the eye. “If you don’t want to talk to me, we both know I can’t make you, and in that case, I both am willing and have no choice but to talk to other people.”

“Way to threaten me with the future PTSD of the entire town,” Stiles snorts, though the side of his mouth is twisting up. He’s still more subdued than he should be, and the next moment, he’s slumping his chin into his hands, his eyes almost sagging off Peter. “So I had a vision.”

He’s waiting for something from Peter, and he doesn’t expect it to be pleasant, judging by the tension in his shoulders. “Of me,” Peter tries cautiously.

“Yeah, of you,” Stiles agrees.

Several seconds go by without more. “Of the…non-urgent variety,” Peter says.

Stiles sucks in his breath and pushes himself up as if to rise, and then flops back against the sofa to look tiredly down at Peter. “Yeah, you aren’t gonna die and it’s not because Dad’s got to smash in a garage with a bulldozer he _totally_ didn’t tell me Jordan still had in town, and…damn it, okay, I’m just—you were just pissed off, because Dad and me weren’t around without telling you again, and we missed the condo board interview for some reason.”

“About how far into the future was this, do you think?” Peter says, promptly straightening up. He’ll just write notes on the coffeetable in his own blood if he has to, it’s not like he won’t hea—he spots the corner of his tablet sticking out of the bottom of the sofa. “And how long had we gone without speaking? The condo board—were we actually in front of them, or were we still trying to schedule—”

“Peter, this isn’t about the vision. That’s what I’m trying to say,” Stiles says, looking amused and annoyed. “Also, again, I logged it, so you don’t have to—”

“I know, and I am in no way casting any aspersions on your field codes, it’s a very intuitive system and certainly is a much better predictor than Lydia’s,” Peter mutters, hastily swiping to unlock the tablet. “I just want to make sure my calendar is syncing up, since we all know the first twenty-four hours are the most critical and if I can skip over my usual—”

“Peter, this isn’t about the _vision_ ,” Stiles snaps angrily. When Peter looks up, he has one hand out as if to grab Peter’s tablet away from him. Then he yanks it back and heaves a sigh, his head hanging. “I mean, we know how this part goes. We’ll figure it out, it won’t go like I saw it, we’ll all mostly survive with some wardrobe casualties if it’s a good week, and a session with Scott’s dad in the morgue if it’s not. If that was all, I wouldn’t have—you know me, don’t you? Do you think I just freak out over nothing?”

“No, you don’t. Which is why I like—but that’s not what we’re talking about either,” Peter says. He puts the tablet down on his knee. He’d rather push it completely aside, and climb up on the couch with Stiles, but the other man’s body language is folded in on itself, the same way that an unsprung bear-trap is. “Is it?”

Stiles’ mouth twists again, unhappily. “No,” he mutters. He runs his hand over his face. “No, it’s about—about you know my mom kept this from me and Dad up to the end? Even when she thought I was conspiring with the government to kill her?”

The one redeeming feature of Stiles’ mother’s life, in Peter’s opinion, is her participation in Stiles’ birth. Of course he realizes that he’s in a party of one on that, with Stiles notably in opposition, and so he just keeps his expression as neutral as possible.

“And Granddad, too, I mean, he did this for a whole lifetime and then decided one day that hey, he’d rather barbecue himself,” Stiles goes on. His feet flex and arch up against the carpet, but his shoulders hunch even lower, forestalling any attempt to rise. “And nobody really liked him at the end either, and okay, he didn’t exactly help himself there, but…don’t I just really irritate you sometimes?”

Peter blinks.

Stiles catches him at it and snorts. “I do, I know—I mean, honestly, I _see_ it. And I’m not just talking about the visions either. Like take today, you just spent the whole day running around town annoying people because I wouldn’t talk to you, and you know I’m just going to keep doing that over and over and seeing myself do it in the visions doesn’t change _that_ and—”

“You’re not crazy,” Peter says.

“Uh.” Now Stiles blinks, jarred out of his rhythm. “Um. No. That’s actually and sadly not the problem here.”

“You’re not possessed either, I feel very confident in the latest rune set,” Peter says, glancing over their heads at the faint silver scrolling along all of the molding. Then he looks back at Stiles. “And in the unlikely chance that you’re being blackmailed into this, let me just cancel all my meetings for tomorrow and—”

Stiles starts to reach for Peter, then grips his knee instead. “Okay, this isn’t—I didn’t—this isn’t _external_ , Peter. This is me having this shitty habit of seeing things that I think I have to do something about and then that messes with your life and—”

“And if I recall, the only thing I ever ask for is that you keep me posted on who needs to die,” Peter says.

For one moment, Stiles stares back at him, relief creeping into those startled dark eyes, and Peter can just admire. And then Stiles frowns. “Uh, no, also, you’re pretty into make-up dinners, and sex after body-disposal, and you usually try to wheedle me into ignoring Scott for a—”

“Well, if there’s the opportunity, I’m not such a self-denying martyr that I’m going to—and that’s the real point, Stiles,” Peter says, catching himself before his frustration carries him away. He also catches Stiles twitching slightly and raises his brows; Stiles shrugs a little and Peter lets it go for now, since they are still running even in the attempted-guilting tricks. “I’m not a martyr. I am a very self-centered man, and if I happen to have incorporated you into my life, it’s _not_ because I view it as a sacrifice.”

“Yeah, I know, but—”

“If you want to pull the noble-hero moment, then by all means. You’re here of your own free will too,” Peter says, sitting back and spreading his hands a little. “Walk away from this. Tell yourself you’re saving me the trouble. But it’s not going to change what I feel about you and my life.”

Stiles stares at him again, much more expressionlessly, and for a second, Peter second-guesses himself. He knows Stiles very well, on top of all the usual werewolf senses, and he thinks he’s sealed it, but this is the one person in his life that he can never quite be confident about. And that small, small seed of ice in him is just looking for a chance to spread its frosted lace—

“You’re literally going to kill people if I dump you, aren’t you,” Stiles says.

“No,” Peter says. “Well. Not _immediately_.”

“Yes, you are, you totally are, and—I mean, even before you get there, it’s not like I can dump you _now_ , just because now I’m gonna be the hypocrite over the years and years of advice I’ve been giving Scott about Allison and making sure she keeps the agency in the relationship and not becoming yet another guy telling her how her life should be and— _ugh_ , you’re good,” Stiles says, just before shoving his face into his hands. He digs at his hairline a little, then scoots his fingers down and peers at Peter over the knuckles. “I wasn’t actually dumping you. Or planning to. I just—”

“Had a moment?” Peter floats. The incipient ice tendrils, while arrested, haven’t yet crept back.

Not till Stiles pulls his hands the rest of the way down, and smiles, and closes his eyes while doing that. He drops one hand and bats aimlessly at the carpet, then pokes at Peter’s knee. “Yeah, something like that.”

Peter slides his knee forward. The fingers grazing it hesitate, then let themselves slide over the top of his thigh. Stiles doesn’t lift his head as Peter eases up till they can lean their foreheads together, but his thumb does end up pressing along the inside seam of Peter’s pants.

“We can still take back the offer, you know,” Peter says. Closes his own eyes, because he thinks—and is proven right a second later—that Stiles is going to start. “It’s a very nice unit, but it’s hardly necessary.”

“This wasn’t really about us going joint on the place,” Stiles says, sounding annoyed again.

“I know,” Peter says.

Stiles exhales, his irritation audibly growing, and then his hands close around Peter’s face as Peter finally opens his eyes. The man’s suddenly sprawling on top of Peter, kissing him fiercely, fingers twisting into Peter’s hair to the point of acute pain.

Peter picks him up by the waist, intending to push them back onto the sofa, but Stiles makes a protesting noise and hauls up his knees as if he thinks Peter is _leaving_. Hardly, Peter thinks, delving as hard and deep into the other man’s mouth as he dares. If Stiles has any doubts about this, he wants it on the record—via every single means and method that will take an impression—that they don’t originate from him.

He can taste the blood welling up in Stiles’ lip under the pressure. It’ll split if it—Stiles saves him the trouble of easing back, sinking teeth into Peter’s tongue-tip. Peter jerks sharply and Stiles breaks them apart, only to drag Peter over backwards onto the floor. By the time Peter’s tongue has healed, Stiles has raked his teeth twice down the side of Peter’s neck, just as roughly as Peter’s likes, and their hands are desperately tangling over their clothing.

A hip-twist gets Peter’s pants down far enough, but then Stiles climbs on him again, breathless almost-words distracting Peter, making him think he needs to listen—Stiles doesn’t really ramble, no matter what he or anyone else claims. Every single word coming out of his mouth comes out for a purpose, and even more so in times like this. So Peter keeps trying to make it out, and then Stiles catches him out. An empty flannel sleeve flapping into Peter’s eyes, as Stiles’ knees squeeze up Peter’s thigh. Teeth again, pricking the soft place behind Peter’s ear, making him loosen his grip on the giving globes of Stiles’ ass. The wiry drag of the other man’s groin as he rolls himself against Peter’s belly.

Peter twists them over, or rather, Stiles lets him. Throws up his arms over his head, stares at Peter, throat stretched and bruised mouth wide open in a pant, wide eyes playing up to the instincts roaring like wildfire through Peter’s body. But that’s the man letting him, and Peter never forgets that as he feasts his way down the other man, pinning Stiles by the hips so his throat goes around the cock and not the other way around. Never minds it either, to the confusion of everyone save possibly Talia, but then the world is ninety-nine-percent idiot. He’s a man, not an animal, and domination is for people who can’t think hard enough to get what they want.

No, Stiles lets him, and he knows what a victory that is, that he’s slowly put together over the years. He knows the work it’s taken to read every shiver coursing under his mouth, and he knows all the people who will never, ever be able to understand this language. Brute force would never have gotten him this, and he cherishes it all the more. Because he _is_ selfish, and this, this alone, this is only his.

Stiles spills onto his tongue and Peter laps up every drop, savoring the taste. He still has traces on his teeth when Stiles turns them over, throws a leg over Peter, and grinds his buttocks against Peter’s erection till Peter is baring his fangs at the ceiling in a hoarse shout that vibrates into the teeth Stiles has clamped over his Adam’s apple. He can smell it flavoring his breath as they stretch out where they lie, and this, he thinks, this is the present. This is where they live.

“I just,” Stiles mumbles. Then stops, moving his cheek and chin against Peter’s collarbone. He’s boneless for a moment. “Just think, sometimes, with the stuff that goes on here. I made Dad come back.”

Peter twists his arm. A cramp briefly kinks his elbow, and then the muscle tear knits and he carefully folds in the arm so that he can curl his hand over Stiles’ hip. “If I remember correctly, Talia made him. With Chris in shotgun. And I think you were providing some commentary from the backseat, but I was paying more attention to the gross inaccuracies you were spouting about the Nine Herbs—”

“They weren’t _gross_ , my cultivar guide was just out of date, and I totally see what you’re doing there,” Stiles says, lifting himself up so that Peter can see the face he’s making. When he finishes, his expression smooths out to the verge of pensive. “I just—I honestly didn’t mean to skip lunch. Or make this into a huge—I just…I was thinking about all the condo paperwork you’d brought back, and the ghost at the factory, that was just a ghost but he didn’t know he was dead and for some reason I started thinking of Mom and how she didn’t know what she—she didn’t even know what power she had at the end, didn’t know she was seeing visions and—Dad’s been busy with the Ghost Riders.”

“Yes, Talia’s on that,” Peter says.

“It’s not his fault, by the way,” Stiles says. He sounds like he didn’t hear Peter, but he was and is still looking right at Peter. “He guessed something was up with me, but just couldn’t get a sec to pin me down on it, and—anyway, I think the Ghost Riders pissed him off. Probably showed him Granddad, and he’s been trying really hard to keep me away, I guess so they don’t do that to me. I think he still thinks I’m traumatized over Granddad or something like that.”

Traumatized isn’t the correct word for it, but John isn’t that far off the mark there. But Peter keeps that to himself, and just fingers the line of Stiles’ thigh.

That earns him a cocked brow and then a pointed flick at his right nipple. Stiles snorts as he squirmed, then settles down with his head on Peter’s shoulder. “It’s not that I’m… _okay_ with what Granddad did, because that would mean I’m officially a sociopath,” Stiles says after a moment. “But it’s not…it’s just sometimes I think, okay, Dad and I are doing this our way, and we both signed up to that with eyes open, but is it fair to make everybody else do that too? I mean, we just kept crashing your lives.”

“Yes, you did,” Peter says, instead of sitting up and shaking the man till his common sense comes back. Or permanently removing Scott McCall’s irrationality from Stiles’ life. “I suppose all I can do is point out the number of dead people who have tried to make Talia or I do something.”

Stiles is silent for long enough that Peter starts to think about the cold—and then he snickers. Snickers, and splays his fingers to idly rub the tips across Peter’s pectoral. “Totally gonna murder somebody for this.”

“If I must,” Peter says. He props his free arm under his head, then tilts his chin up as Stiles lifts his head, so the other man has to slither further up in order for them to look into each other’s eyes. “The only relevant question to me is whether you want to live with that, Stiles.”

“The mutual guilt-trips, ah, yes, so we’re at that _stage_ ,” Stiles says, shaking his head, his fingers curling over Peter’s shoulders. He bends over, pauses, and then kisses Peter. It’s deep and soft and slow, and then Stiles lets his mouth slide off along Peter’s jawline. He sighs. “We should go track down Dad. He’s been putting up with this a lot longer than you.”

“Yes, Talia’s well aware,” Peter says. He doesn’t get up, but he does pat around till he finds his pants, and then tosses them till his phone slides out of the pocket. “If the Ghost Riders did show him your grandfather—”

“Somebody just needs to remind him Mom didn’t call Granddad for a reason. Even when she was losing her mind, she still thought he was a better bet than that guy, and she was right,” Stiles says matter-of-factly, clearly not even thinking about it. He levers himself up, looking grumpy about it, and then scrubs at his quiffed-up hair, as if that’s going to smooth out the rumple. “He just gets like that sometimes, you know? Like he’s still not sure he did it the right way, just because he was making it up as he went along?”

Talia has in fact texted Peter in the last hour. He thumbs open the thread, then rolls his eyes when entire blocks of text pop up. He’ll read those later when he has time to laugh at her; right now, he guesses that Chris has probably also texted, and is actually thankful to be proven right. Moreover, Chris kept it to a short text saying the last Ghost Rider’s been roped up and that they’re reconvening at John’s office for the debrief. “I’m familiar with that one, yes.”

Something nudges Peter in the ribs, hard. “Yeah?” Stiles says when he looks up, eyes narrowed suspiciously.

Peter widens his own eyes, smiling innocuously. “Hmm?”

“Oh, for—let’s get dressed and check on him, and then I’ll feel okay to fall asleep on you,” Stiles mutters, bapping Peter on the shoulder. Still, he lets Peter catch him up against the doorway, and even slip him some tongue before he pushes Peter away. “I need to get in a solid eight hours at some point this weekend if we’re gonna get your criminal record past the condo board.”

For a second Peter’s breathless, and then he leans in for a last nuzzle against Stiles’ throat, smiling. “What record?”

“Yeah, exactly, and not with that much help from you,” Stiles snorts. He grabs Peter’s wrist. “C’mon, let’s deal with it and get back to the fun stuff. Sound good?”

“Always,” Peter says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Much of this story was motivated by the desire to write Stiles and Peter having Ongoing Relationship Issues, since I've already written so much get-together fic for them. And foregrounding the relationship part, rather than having external factors shape their issues.


	24. Then

According to Stiles’ vision, Talia’s younger brother got bored with watching the children and tried to play pack politics, only he’d been faked out and the alpha on the other end of the line was really Blackwood, who’d somehow survived the prior fight with Talia and who was thirsting for revenge. Peter wasn’t dead yet, but obviously, it wasn’t a situation that could wait.

So John and Stiles rounded up some weapons, Chris and Talia made some calls, and they didn’t so much return to Beacon Hills as ram an SUV into a house on the outskirts of town. It got a little hairy, mostly because there were a lot of new people John didn’t recognize and Talia kept introducing them as friendlies _after_ John had tried to shoot them (Chris was slightly better, in the sense that he’d do it right as John was trying to aim, so nobody got shot but then, _nobody got shot_ ), but they got Peter out in one piece and didn’t permanently lose anyone they cared about. That part was…not easy, but it was straightforward.

Less so was the aftermath, which found John sitting on the roof of Deaton’s clinic because if he wanted some air, it was that or the parking lot, and he had too much dried blood on him for it to be a good look at street level. On the roof, so long as he slouched against the brick, the only thing people would be able to see would be his forehead.

“Come up for a smoke?” came Talia’s voice.

John thought about jumping off the roof, then grimaced and just pulled up his knee. “I don’t,” he said, watching her haul herself out of the trapdoor and then come over to him. “Just didn’t want to smell myself anymore.”

“The line for the shower’s down to two, and Scott and Allison probably wouldn’t mind sharing so long as someone made sure her parents didn’t see it,” Talia told him.

She and the Argents seemed to have some sort of truce on—John hesitated to call it an alliance, given how much glee Talia seemed to take in making Chris and Victoria twitch. It still seemed to involve a lot of veiled threats and other things John didn’t necessarily want to add to his life. Although that was probably just wishful thinking now, what with his and Chris’ magical connection. Which he should be doing something about.

“Stiles is filling up on pizza with my kids,” Talia added after a moment, looking slightly less entertained and slightly more concerned. “There’s plenty of the sausage and garlic left, and I don’t think you’ve had any yet.”

“Well, it’ll keep, and I can’t eat that stuff where Stiles will catch me,” John said. Then fought back the urge to hunch when Talia looked oddly at him. “He worries about my cholesterol levels.”

“Your lifestyle seems active enough, I can’t imagine it’s that much of a problem,” Talia said.

John shrugged and muttered his usual line about Stiles’ imagination, to which Talia nodded sympathetically, and then they stared at each other. She had her arms loosely folded across her front and seemed comfortable enough, even with the heels she’d put on at some point.

“Because I am comfortable. These are custom-fitted Louboutins and I can stand here till the moon rises,” Talia said tartly. Then snorted. “Chris is right, you _do_ have that kind of face.”

“I—” _don’t know what you mean_ was what John was planning on saying, except his irritation got in the way and instead he finished with: “—wasn’t going to stay long, if that’s what you’re here for.”

“No, of course not, because that’s not what you do.” For some reason, Talia sounded annoyed. She _looked_ annoyed, her eyes narrowed, her stance widening slightly like she was positioning for a tackle if John got up. “You just zip into town, rescue my family, and then vanish again before we even figure out who’s dead.”

John frowned. “So you’re…mad about that?”

“What? No, I like my family alive, and I don’t mind the help,” Talia snapped. Then she took a half-step back. She inhaled deeply, brushed the hair out of her face, and then exhaled. Then stepped forward again, her arms unfolding to swing loose by her sides as she looked down at John. “That part’s fine. The part that’s annoying is how you keep dropping out of sight. The last time, since Gerard popped up _again_ right after, I wasn’t even sure you’d actually survived. Chris and I wasted six months stalking each other before we figured out neither of us had anything to do with that.”

“Oh, really? I didn’t think anyone would…well, okay, I guess I could—actually, you don’t even need a note now, with Chris,” John said, blinking. “And if something happens to me, it’s definitely not going to be because of him—”

“You could just stay,” Talia said.

John blinked again. Then pushed himself up, about to correct her, only to remember that actually they _were_ supposed to be moving back. Stiles wanted to, and John honestly was out of reasons why it’d be any worse than their other options, and…he still didn’t know how he felt about that, really.

His face must have been acting up again, because Talia’s expression softened. She pressed her lips together, briefly, then started to say something. Then stopped herself, looking uncertain but determined to push into it anyway (something years of Stiles had made John an expert in recognizing). “There’s no toll for that, you know. That is…I would like it if I had a heads-up on any danger you or Stiles might know of, but you don’t have to jump in there with us,” she said. “We could, I don’t know, just have coffee so you can tell me, and then I can take it from there. I’m not one of those alphas who’ll try and force you to help.”

“I—thanks, that’s—good,” John said, grimacing even as the words were coming out of his mouth. He grimaced again upon seeing the flicker of amusement in Talia’s face, then started getting to his face. “It’s not really like I felt like I was being forced, you know.”

“Well, I assumed from the way you throw orders around,” Talia said dryly.

“Do I…oh, I guess I do. Is that a pack thing?” John asked. “Like it’s going to undermine your authority?”

Talia looked like she was trying not to smile. “Yes.” Then she put up her hand. “Of course, I’m a female alpha with children. Basically _anything_ undermines my authority. Anyway, that’s something we can work on.”

Getting a little ahead of herself there, John thought but didn’t say, and Talia stiffened like she’d heard it anyway. They both hesitated, looking at each other. Then a sound at street level made John glance over his shoulder.

It wasn’t anything, just a raccoon popping a trashcan lid, but John kept gazing at the alley for a little longer than he had to. This was the town he’d lived in, and this was the town he’d left. Stiles had said that no matter what else they’d done and where else they’d gone, Beacon Hills had always seemed like home to him, and at the time John hadn’t thought much about that. But now, thinking about it…he still didn’t see it. And it wasn’t that he thought Stiles was wrong—it was an opinion, neither of them could be wrong or right. But Beacon Hills had just been…been where he’d lived.

He’d picked it for his job and because it’d looked like an okay place to raise a family, and hadn’t really put much thought into it besides that. He and Claudia hadn’t really been in a position to afford to, so might as well just put it out of mind and let the place grow on them, which was what he’d done. And when Claudia had gotten sick, the disease had come on her fast and hard (he knew now that was partly her visions) and he hadn’t really had the time to let the feelings change. He’d taken Stiles and run from the place, but he hadn’t even had the time to figure out what he was running from.

“Or you could leave again,” Talia said reluctantly. She didn’t quite look at John when he turned back to her, continuing to gaze past him at the town. “I could see why it would hold…hold ghosts for you.”

“I don’t know,” John told her, because he honestly didn’t. Those times he’d thought he’d heard voices—Claudia’s voice in particular. Maybe they’d just all been in his head, maybe there was something going on that he should look into. 

Maybe he’d just been so deep into the supernatural that it was growing on _him_ , and he’d just been too busy to notice, just like with his last job. Hell, with necromancy as his emergency go-to, ‘plain human’ didn’t mean a lot these days.

“I just think,” Talia said, the words a little rushed. Then she visibly made herself slow down. “I would like it if we…were able to talk to each other besides when my family’s in danger. We still haven’t really.”

“Yeah. But it’s not like you haven’t seen what I’m like—you still want to get to know each other?” John asked her, genuinely curious.

She eyed him a little bit, then answered as if she was taking the question at face value. “Well, yes, I do. I knew your wife, a little. Or I thought I did, but obviously, I didn’t, and at least with what’s happened, I know I have _no idea_ what you’re like most of the time.”

John opened his mouth.

“You literally don’t see yourself, in my opinion. Popping in every few years, bodies all over the place and you chew out at least one member of my pack for annoying your son, before disappearing into the sunset. You’re like if they made Jack Ryan a single parent,” Talia told him.

“Well, except I never said I was just an analyst,” John muttered. “Is that what you were all reading in that book club?”

Talia laughed. It was a bright, loose sound, and for a second John just blinked at it. Then he breathed in, and told himself it was fine if his shoulders tried to loosen up too. 

“I would like to get to know you,” Talia said, sobering up. “Of course, that’s only one way…and perhaps doesn’t mean anything to you.”

“I don’t know,” John said again, because he didn’t, and for once he wanted to try thinking it over.

Not all of that came across, from the confused way Talia frowned at him, but enough came out that when he moved, she didn’t move like she thought he was going to bolt. She did pause before she moved over for him, so he gave her a nod and then kept his stride slow as they went down into the building.

Talia left him almost immediately as someone called for her—not a family member, he didn’t think, but a werewolf who’d been absorbed into the pack at some point. It seemed urgent, but not like it’d end in violence, so John let his nose lead him into the room with all of the pizza and his son.

“ _No_ blondes,” Stiles was telling Derek and a girl his own age, who John vaguely remembered as being introduced as Scott’s friend. “No. How many times do I have to tell you, you and blondes—no.”

“Okay, I was just checking, because actually, you said that all of once, and you were something like five feet high back then,” Derek said, annoyed. He consoled himself with a fresh pizza slice that he doused with three packets each of parmesan and red-pepper flakes.

The girl, who happened to be blonde, started edging away from Derek even before he reached for the garlic powder. “Redheads?” she suggested.

Stiles rocked back in his chair, but before he could do more than look like mulling it over, Derek had growled around the slice in his mouth. “Not my thing.”

“Well, fine, sourwolf, see if we help you get booty anymore,” the girl snorted, and then high-fived Stiles over Derek’s head. “Love the nickname.”

“Wear it out, I’m releasing it into the public domain!” Stiles said happily. Just about then he spotted John and hopped up, ignoring how Derek and the girl were getting into an argument behind him. He swiped up a pizza-laden paper plate along the way, then handed it to John. “Dad! Hey, I saved you two slices, because even I recognize that some days, the comfort-food imperative outweighs healthy living. Anyway, I feel like we both burned a gazillion calories on this latest trip into Hale country, so.”

John accepted the slices—not sausage and garlic but there was cheese and lots of it—then startled as his stomach, which had been lying pretty low, picked that moment to pay attention. He grabbed a fistful of napkins, then retreated into the hall because the plate was dripping grease and that was where the nearest trashcan he could stand over was.

Stiles followed him out, looking a little less happy. “Hey…”

“Just haven’t eaten,” John muttered, before stuffing the corner of a slice into his mouth. He really hadn’t—his world immediately narrowed to the taste of cheese and salt and oil-soaked carbs, and stayed that way for the next three bites.

At that point, his throat also woke up, and let him know he needed some liquid to go with all the salt. He lifted his head and caught Stiles eyeing him. His son started to pretend like that hadn’t happened, then put his shoulders back and looked John in the eye. Which meant it took him two gropes behind him to hit the pack of sodas before he could pass John one, but still.

“Thanks,” John said, cracking the can. He washed some of the mumble out of his mouth, then looked at Stiles. “No headache?”

“Nope, nothing new under the sun,” Stiles said. Still a little cautious, but this time when he reached behind him, he twisted his head, so he got the breadsticks on the first try. He offered John one, then looked like he was working very hard to not be judgmental when John took it. “I…think we’re done for now.”

John nodded, then took another swig of soda. “Scott?”

“I think he’s still waiting for the shower. He did get the brunt of that mudslide—we’re gonna have to take him shopping or something, he’s supposed to have ‘dinner’ with his dad tomorrow—” Stiles not only had finger quotation gestures for that, he also had two different eyerolls “—and those were his only nice shoes. His mom’s already got to process everything in the morgue so I feel like she’d appreciate it?”

“Yeah, probably,” John said. Then sighed. “Think I’m done too. Nothing chasing us out of here, far as I know, so you can set something up with him for the weekend. I do want to spend tomorrow finding somewhere else to put our gear besides the hotel.”

“Well, _that’s_ new,” Stiles said, looking surprised. He immediately tried to cover it up by dropping another breadstick on John’s plate. “But welcome! And don’t worry, already on the storage situation, we’ve got two options besides this clinic’s basement—maybe three if a certain ungrateful jerk stops whining about how I broke into his personal supply and remembers it was _in service of saving his limbs_.”

“I wasn’t complaining about the break-in, just about the quality of the compounding. Magic Bullet, honestly? Could you be any sloppier?” Peter said, suddenly appearing in the hallway. Stiles startled and John immediately moved towards his son, but then he realized Peter had frozen in place. The man was eyeing Stiles, but in a faintly confused way. “ _You’re_ Stiles?”

“What, did you think I was shorter?” Stiles immediately retorted, though from the way he was blinking owlishly, it was just reflexive.

“Yes,” Peter said, still staring. He’d filled out since the last time John had seen him, but still had a young-looking face, more on the grad-student side than the ready-to-start-a-family side. The pissy air probably played into that too, John thought. “Also, better at herbalry, from what Chris said about babysitting you.”

“ _Babysi_ —first of all, that was _not_ the relationship there, and second, I _am_. I was just in a hurry! Because you were dying! Give me a break, I don’t have werewolf biceps, it’s not like I can paste stuff in five seconds with a mortar and pestle!” Stiles complained. He jabbed his half-eaten breadstick at Peter’s chest. “Anyway, from all the stuff I’d heard and seen about _you_ , I was expecting better than falling for a voice synthesizer.”

“All right, all right, can we finish the pizza before we start a new vendetta?” Talia sighed, coming up behind Peter. She put her hand on Peter’s shoulder, tugging him back, and then gave Stiles a soothing smile. “Can I have the marinara sauce?”

Stiles stammered, still in rant mode, and then fumbled behind him. “Sure, here,” he said, handing over a little plastic tub.

“Thank you. Peter, eat something, I can smell your low blood sugar from here,” Talia said, promptly passing it over to her brother.

Who blinked, then frowned down at his hand. “Am I supposed to just drink this straight?”

“Oh, for…” Stiles went back into the other room, with Peter ambling after him. He got Peter a pack of the breadsticks and the two of them promptly went back to bickering about whatever Stiles did or didn’t do with Peter’s herbs.

“Well, one fight averted, more or less,” Talia observed. She tilted her head, watching the way Peter’s gesturing was starting to get as florid as Stiles’; Derek and the girl started crowding each other as they ducked the waving hands. “Less.”

“Not really, just kicking it down the road,” John said, recognizing the signs in his son.

Talia glanced over at him, then started to say something. Then hesitated, her eyes flicking across his face and then to Stiles.

“Eh, I don’t think this one will kill him. And anyway, talking to somebody who actually knows enough about this stuff to argue back probably will do him some good,” John said, assuming that was the reason why.

It wasn’t, said the way her brows rose. “Would you…” she said, moving her head as if she was going to invite him to step into one of the other rooms. “I’m not sure what kind of timetable you’re on—”

“Not on one. Not really—nothing that can’t wait,” John said. Nothing that hadn’t waited years already, he thought: his wife’s death, his father-in-law’s death, feeling guilty about and mad at both of them. Hell, he hadn’t even really thought to look into the occasional voices he’d heard, that was how long his list of things to sort out was. Was that even nor—

He stopped himself, realizing he’d been about to say that out loud. Talia had caught onto something, watching him closely, but she didn’t press. Which was good, because John was worn-out on a couple levels, but he wasn’t sure he was ready yet to float that one by anybody besides his mirror.

But it was an idea, he thought. Floating that by somebody. He wouldn’t ever bring up that with Stiles, his son already took responsibility for sorting out too much that wasn’t actually his problem, and he’d learned pretty quickly not to bring those types of things up with Mieczyslaw. So he’d just…not talked about it. But maybe that was something to think about too.

“Maybe later,” he ended up saying to Talia.

“All right, I’ll mark it down,” she said, like she knew exactly what he meant.

John looked sharply at her, but she’d already pushed past him, calling out to somebody walking into another room. He felt his shoulders tense up and reflex had him twisting around and searching out Stiles with his eyes—but his son was all right, still arguing with Peter. And they were alive, and even if they didn’t have it all figured out yet, they could still work on it.

So maybe he’d just let this one play out. Because even seeing the future didn’t tell you everything, and sometimes, he thought, watching Stiles try to illustrate something with three breadsticks and a weirdly-shaped piece of pizza crust, it might be better that way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That is Erica in there with them.
> 
> Yes, this is the first time Stiles and Peter are meeting in this timeline, and yes, that means Stiles and Derek technically knew each other for longer. I see Stiles and Derek having a semi-broish relationship, in that Derek feels he should be the older brother but Stiles ends up vibing as the elder because he's already foreseen all of Derek's romantic mistakes.


	25. Now

_“Aren’t you supposed to be having lunch right now?”_ Stiles’ dad says, sounding even more exasperated, not like it really covers up the desperation in his voice. _“Son, I thought we were trying to convince everybody things were back to normal.”_

“Well, yeah, Dad, that’s what I thought too, but clearly, if Jordan’s claiming you’re at home and Tara’s claiming you’re at the hospital, it’s not normal,” Stiles snorts. He clamps his phone between his ear and shoulder, trying to dig his earphones out from his pocket, and then remembers he slipped them into his laptop sleeve earlier in the day. “For the record, I also checked with Braeden, and all she’s texting back is ‘not my problem’ memes.”

His laptop’s in his bag, which is placeholding the seat across the table, so he tries to stretch over to get it. But the table is a little too wide, so he switches to hooking the chair leg and dragging it around the table.

_“Yeah, well, it’s not her problem they can’t cover for me worth a damn,”_ Stiles’ dad sighs, and Stiles’ sneaker slips on the floor and jerks the chair too hard, tipping his bag off. _“Stiles? You sound like you have—”_

“I do, but still! Not! Letting this—” Stiles swallows his second yelp as his bag cannons into his stomach, and then his knees thump painfully on the tile floor right after “—go, Dad, clearly you got something and we’re gonna talk it out and—”

_“…John? John, are you actually getting the Nutella or are you trying to work again?”_ calls Talia from somewhere in the middle distance.

Stiles goes silent and listens to his father make an embarrassed grunting noise. Then his dad covers the phone so Stiles can’t make out the conversation, just the fact that one is going on, and that at one point Chris gets in on it, sounding urgent but nonfatally so. Then, coughing, his dad gets back on. _“I was in the middle of straightening it out.”_

“Oh. Oh, okay, then,” Stiles says. “I guess that’s what I wanted to know, honestly.”

There’s a long pause, and then his dad sighs again. _“Stiles, I want you to actually stay at lunch, because I have a meeting with Scott’s dad later and the last thing I need is somebody running in about Peter and you declaring war on avocado toast again.”_

“It wasn’t on avocado toast, it was on the psychotropic additives _in_ the avocado that were being used to make people more susceptible to demonic possession,” Stiles protests. “Also, in case you forgot, that toast replaced the excellent shakshuka you were all over too. Even though your cholesterol numbers aren’t really—”

_“Okay, okay, forget I mentioned that. I just—it wasn’t your grandfather. Or your mom. You know that, right?”_ his dad says, tone sliding from exasperated to weary in the same breath. Pause. _“Yeah, I got upset because those asshole cowboys brought them up, but it wasn’t…wasn’t about them. It was about them coming up when they’re just the last thing…that isn’t our problem anymore. Not that they were ever a problem—”_

“I get what you’re saying, Dad,” Stiles says, hearing how the man’s working himself up. He really isn’t trying to bait his father; if Talia and Chris are over and Nutella is involved, things are obviously getting smoothed over and he doesn’t want to derail that (even if he’s just about swallowing his inner dietician). “And come on, okay, I’m legally able to cast a vote now, you don’t have to keep up appearances. Granddad was a problem.”

His father made an affectionate, pained noise. _“He tried, you know. Just his way, and you just couldn’t really talk to him about how to try any other way, but…anyway, that’s the past. You’re right, it’s just…it’s over, and you’ve really done a good job putting all that behind you, and I just got…pissed off somebody was trying to bring it back, making it all about…it just should stay over. It was a hard enough fight the first time and there’s no reason to do it again. That’s all. And I know I got carried away and just tried to do it all myself again, but…that was all it was. You know what I mean.”_

“Yeah. Yeah, I do,” Stiles says. He moves off his knees, pulling his bag from his lap and setting it back in the chair. Then he takes it back and pushes it under the table, spotting Peter pulling into the parking lot. He hooks up his chin and catches the eye of the nearest waiter, who immediately starts to head over. “I just, you know it’s the same for you too, right? I mean, that’s why Talia and Chris got all weird, you know. Right? Because they don’t want you to refight it, because they’d be _here_ this time around.”

_“I—yeah. Yeah, that’s what they’ve been taking turns telling me,”_ Stiles’ dad says. He moves around, and the sound of other people talking briefly comes over the line, then disappears. _“And what everybody else is going to keep telling me, once they finally get done.”_

“Old habits die hard, and I’m not gonna be a hypocrite and say I don’t know that from firsthand experience,” Stiles says. “Well, look, I just wanted to know we really were going to let it stay dead, Dad. Since sadly, this foresight thing does only work in one direction.”

His father laughs. _“I think we’ll live. Now go have lunch, all right?”_

“Okay, okay. I’ll just check your sugar intake later,” Stiles says, and then hangs up before his dad can complain about it. Then he smiles brightly at the hovering waiter. “Hi, so I was just looking at the menu, and the blood sausage isn’t on?”

“We ran out last night so we just took it off,” the waiter says, clutching a menu so hard that it’s starting to warp. “But don’t worry, the cook knows your boyfriend loves it and always keeps back one, and it’s getting fried up as we speak.”

“Oh, great!” Stiles says. Over the man’s shoulder he can see Peter getting out of the car and he waves one hand so Peter will see they’ve got their favorite table. “So hey, you’re on the lacrosse team, right?”

The waiter freezes, eyes wide. “Yes?”

“I think practice tonight’s gonna end early, just so you know,” Stiles says, and then suppresses a sigh when that just makes the guy pale even more. “It’s okay, Scott’s going to be around. Isaac’s car is in the shop so Scott’s giving him a ride.”

“Okay, cool, they’re both great at helping us figure out what Coach Finstock really means,” the waiter says, his heart rate clearly dropping by about twenty beats per minute. He starts to head off, then pauses. “Um, so…I take it we should probably also not hang out at Mr. Freeze’s instead? Since, um, that’s usually where the team goes after practice?”

“No, probably not,” Stiles says.

The waiter nods frantically. Moves off a step, stops like he might ask one more thing, and then nods again and rushes off towards the kitchen as Peter, raising a curious brow, makes his way over to the table. 

“People are always blaming me for the line at the high-school counselor’s office, you know,” he says conversationally, dropping into the chair across from Stiles. His foot takes an exploratory meander up Stiles’ calf, because of course, Peter can’t just peck Stiles on the mouth like a normal romantic partner. Stiles rolls his eyes and kicks the man, and Peter makes a huge production out of wincing and hissing, twisting around so his shirt stretches over his pecs and letting his tongue wiggle behind his teeth. “And when you break down the numbers, really I’m very much in second place.”

“I was making sure the line doesn’t get any longer,” Stiles says, sliding Peter a menu. He gets back into his chair and puts his phone away, and then, so Peter doesn’t pout the entire meal, crosses his feet around Peter’s ankle. “Since we’ve never in the history of me living in this town been able to have a pack-to-pack meet without somebody throwing down, and you always want a rosé slushie after beating up an alpha.”

“I’m perfectly capable of waiting till the next day,” Peter says, though he looks very smug about being locked in place. Werewolves and their claim-based kinks. “Also, I generally try to make myself presentable before I go out in public, unlike some in this pack. Oh, damn, they took—”

“It’s not on the menu but they’re doing up a blood sausage anyway, just for you, ‘cause we’re so terrifying like that,” Stiles says. He grins back as Peter looks up, startled. “You know when I called to move the reservation up a day, they promised me the borscht would be back? Without me even saying anything?”

Peter does a horrible, horrible job of not looking like he had anything to do with that. “Well, popular demand is very compelling.”

“Or something,” Stiles mutters, looking over the dessert section. He lets Peter rumble contently to himself for a few seconds. “So let’s talk about the body.”

“Body?” Peter says.

“Peter, there’s only one reason why Talia would bring Nutella to a midday reconciliation session—” Stiles gives Peter’s ankle a warning squeeze, just as his boyfriend goes and smirks salaciously anyway, because Stiles loves his dad but not in a way that he likes thinking about the details there “—and just tell me where you put it, okay? I’m not gonna judge, I just want to make sure Scott’s dad doesn’t bitch. He’s testy this week and Melissa’s still pissed off at all of us for being ‘passive-aggressive nincompoops.’”

“I really don’t know why there’s always talk of bodies around me, you know,” Peter says, doing that wounded-contempt thing of his. Which, Stiles isn’t going to lie, is compellingly sexy, with the sidelong glances and all, but still. Every single time. “Again, I make a point of cleaning after myself.”

Stiles rolls his eyes and slouches in his seat so he can work his feet further up Peter’s leg. Then ignores Peter’s rising brows and delighted little grin. Never mind the pudding, this is going to take the cream cake. “Not arguing with that, just arguing that if you’re gonna handle a guy who can call up Ghost Riders, _maybe_ don’t do it in Scott’s dad’s backyard. He’s getting smarter about bloodstain spells, okay? Because, and look, Lydia and I already talked to Scott about it, he and Scott are trying to have some kind of relationship? So they talk about that kind of thing at their biweekly dinner? And he does know how to use the Internet?”

Peter makes a small, sharp noise. It’s not exactly alarmed, but it does justify Stiles’ decision to clamp the man’s leg. And also to order an extra slice of the cream cake to go, once they’re through lunch and are heading off to execute the cover-up of the cover-up. Because between that and the interpack meet later, they probably aren’t going to have dinner at their usual time, and Peter is _such_ a creature of habit, honestly. Miss one meal and he just goes crazy, and all the predictive powers in the world aren’t going to stop him then.

So cake. It really is the little things, Stiles thinks, swinging the bag from one hand as they head out. Not the big dramatic visions, but the things here and there, the stuff coming in between. That’s what really gets them home at the end of the day—and they did just close on a place too, so if possible, he’d like to not mess that up too soon. Cake’s pretty cheap at that price. 

Besides, considering what he’s got to put up with around here? He’s going to want a slice too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Secretly, this story is about food, and Peter's eating habits.
> 
> No, seriously, I wanted to write a story about how a cool-looking lifestyle can really mess up your head, and how traumatic events (unlike on the show, where they come up on an episode-by-episode basis) filter outward and unevenly, both forward and backward in time. The appendix in Alan Moore's _From Hell_ talks about how murder isn't really a fixed point but acts more like a fractal or quantum mechanics--which in this era, plays a little bit macho pretentious but there's something to it. John and Stiles are smart, and good at coping, but still, they aren't _really_ used to the supernatural until years down the line, and not until they've accepted that it's going to have to be a social thing.
> 
> (blood sausage is awesome, though. and you didn't actually think this story would wrap without Peter killing somebody, did you?)


End file.
